this is a love i cannot undo (eyes open, i burn in hell)
by Landwerda
Summary: In which Thorin, Fili, and Kili survive the Battle of Five Armies and have to deal with the fallout. (There are Durins on the throne of Erebor for the first time in two centuries. Middle-Earth shudders in anticipation.)
1. Arc 1: deeper than the bones of the sky

**So. I know I've got a bunch of other WIPs that I'm supposed to be working on that haven't happened, but the Hobbit's been eating my head since January and... life's been busy. And so, here we are! This is finished, though it is the first in a series of three. Keep in mind that there are frank discussions of asexuality and relationships- for more information on the intersection of asexuality/aromanticism just check it out on . Enjoy!**

 **...**

Kíli watched his brother carefully.

Thorin was still pale and Kíli himself still limped- but the first caravan of dwarves from Ered Luin were to arrive in the morning, and so the entire Company had trooped out at dawn, waiting at the gates.

Fíli had taken over the duties of ruling while Thorin recovered. He had spent as much time beside Kíli as he had dealing with matters of state, but then Tauriel had stalked inside one afternoon, a livid bruise across one cheekbone, and had not left him; Fíli had avoided him after that, and during the rare times when he was there and Tauriel was not, he did not mention her at all.

And his Uncle- no, his King- did not yet know that Kíli had found his One, or that Kíli wished to keep her beside him. Kíli wanted to keep that little tidbit of information with him for as long as possible.

But. Kíli watched his brother carefully, because he was worried.

While Thorin and he slumbered in a healing sleep, Fíli had been working. Erebor was cleansed of dragon-sickness by Gandalf, the treasure inside divided between the members of the Company, and a deal struck with the Mirkwood elves such that they would finally leave. Fíli'd then treated with the men of Laketown, and he had secured grain for assistance in rebuilding the town.

He had done his duty as Prince an eternity over; the question was at what price.

For Fíli had not been uninjured, Kíli well knew- Azog had taken a steep toll on his brother, and had Thorin not charged him when he did the whole affair might have been a different, sadder tale. But Thorin's charge had resulted in Fíli tumbling down a mountainside. It wasn't a death sentence to dwarves in the way it was to men, but Fíli had a myriad of other injuries, and he had been found hours after the end of the battle, according to Óin's mutters.

And he had not been resting, as Thorin or Kíli or even the rest of the Company. Kíli had seen the naked relief on his face when Thorin woke for good and took the reins of kingship back. If his brother's reaction remained that straightforward, Kíli would count his blessings, but he doubted Fíli would stay like that- he was, unfortunately, a Durin, and there was nothing their family did better than dramatics.

Leaning against cut rock, looking as theatrically brooding as their Uncle at his worst, Fíli was staring out into the fog-ridden fields. Kíli limped over to him and nudged his shoulder.

"Looking forward to seeing Amad?" He asked.

Fíli twitched, though he then leaned back and smiled at Kíli- "Aren't you?" He asked. "After all, you always ran after her skirts when I beat you at swords, so you spent far more time with her-"

"Shut up," Kíli growled and punched him in the shoulder. "Anyways, if I'm remembering rightly, I used to beat you at wrestling, and that's when you went crying foul to her. Old age catching up to you, brother?"

"I'm five years older than you!" Fíli protested.

Kíli watched his shoulders loosen from a burden too heavy, and grinned inwardly.

It was all for naught, however- the heavy horn of Durin's line blared, announcing their mother's arrival, and Fíli went stiff next to him. Kíli frowned, but left it alone; there was little enough he could do.

They'd heard Durin's horn, but it seemed to be farther-carrying than any of them expected, because it took over an hour for their mother's caravan to finally arrive. When Dís' horse crested the hill, Fíli threaded his arm through Kíli's shoulders and supported him as they half-ran, half-limped towards her.

He felt Fíli brace himself, and so he lunged forwards, angled so he took his mother off the horse. Dís toppled backwards and landed on the earth, rolling; she came up wrapped around him, knocking her head against his and folding her arms so that he could barely move. A moment later, Fíli had joined them, and they were closer than they'd been in years, and it was perfect for one long, unbroken moment.

Kíli inhaled the scent of his mother: clean iron, mint, and smoke. He could imagine himself a stripling still, holding onto his mother's warmth, unheeding of the outer world. It was the safest he knew to be.

"Two years gone," said Dís, herding them up and resorting to shoving Kíli when he wouldn't budge. "Oh, boys, look at your scars, injuries-" Her hands rubbed over the ropy scar over Fíli's shoulder, the stiff bark surrounding Kíli's leg. She looked caught between relief and anger, though in the end relief won. "Your father- if nothing else, you ought to know this- Vili would have been proud of you."

Both of them froze, and Kíli said, "Proud of the scars or injuries?"

He was damn proud of himself when his voice didn't waver in the slightest, and he sounded only flippant. It also gave Fíli a chance to bury his head in Dís' side; to hide the slight sheen of tears in his eyes.

"Oh, the injuries, surely," said Dís, eyes twinkling. "He always thought them so dashing, particularly in dams- I could tell you about when I had a slice down my leg from an orc, and he-"

Fíli groaned loud enough to cut off her words. Dís laughed, loudly: from deep in her belly, rising until it echoed out her throat. Kíli realized that he'd almost forgotten what that sounded like, and he felt something very much like guilt rise up in his throat.

"That's right, Dís," said a voice in front of them. Kíli looked up to see his Uncle frowning down on them. "Everyone knows how that story ends, and nobody ever wanted to see your damned elvish ankles, not even Vili- no matter what you drugged him with."

"Only person I ever needed to drug was you, Thorin," replied Dís. "Unless you've forgotten who decided to blame whom for Amad's copper beads?"

"No comments about your ankles?"

Dís snorted and rose to her feet, reached out and gripped his Uncle's arms. They slammed their heads together- Thorin looked a little shaky, but then he just brought her close and held her.

"How is Erebor?" She asked him, almost too quiet to be heard.

"Cold," he said. "Empty. But still-"

"-home," said their mother.

The rest of the Company were waiting in the distance, not-quite-patiently. Kíli thought that if Bilbo hadn't been there, they'd likely have abandoned all propriety and just leapt on the royal family.

"Amad," said Fíli, "you need to meet the Company."

Their mother nodded and shifted away from Thorin. She knew Dwalin and Balin already, from Erebor; she had heard of Dori, Nori, and Ori; she was good friends with Glóin's wife, and so likely knew Óin as well. Bombur, Bifur, and Bofur were likely the only ones she did not know- and Bilbo, of course.

But before they could, there was a shout from the caravan, and a blur of red erupted from a horse and headed directly to Glóin.

"Gimli?" Glóin breathed, hugging the blur tightly. "What the-" he bit his tongue and continued, a little calmer, "-what are you doing here?"

"When we heard that Smaug was defeated," called a dame behind Kíli, "we could not very well stay behind, could we?"

Glóin looked up slowly, as if in a dream, and said, "Freyis."

Freyis moved forward, and so did Glóin, and when they met it was with the crack of two boulders meeting; Kíli found a sudden urge to look away.

Then Dwalin and Balin were there, and Dwalin cracked his head against Dís', before slinking to the background as was his wont. Balin stayed beside her, however, as she met the rest of the Company.

Bilbo swept a bow when it was his turn. "You'll forgive me if I don't welcome you in the dwarfish manner," he said politely, "Mistress Dís- but I'm afraid my head's not quite as hard as yours, and I personally wish to head back to the Shire without a concussion."

"Thorin mentioned that he had hired a burglar, but certainly not a Hobbit," said Dís.

Fíli arched an eyebrow. "When did Uncle have time to send news, Amad?"

Thorin reached out and gripped their shoulders, one hand on Kíli's and the other on Fíli's. "In Bree, and Rivendell, and then Laketown. Perhaps you ought have done the same?"

"You could have told us," Kíli grumbled, and felt Thorin's hand tighten to the point of pain, before retreating. Fíli elbowed him in the stomach.

"Diplomacy," he hissed. "Or are you forgetting the news you have for Amad and Uncle, Kíli?"

Kíli flinched. It was true, or at least true enough; but why on earth did Fíli have to say it out loud?

"Shut your gob," he muttered back and straightened his coat; glanced over and saw that Díswas busy greeting some other people. "Maybe we should go look at the caravan? Mahal, they probably brought nebaguabanu- Fíli!"

Nebaguabanu: brush of stone. A weed that grew in Ered Luin's highest steppes, tasting of wild rosemary and thyme. It was the only weed that Kíli ever smoked, and he'd been missing it- they'd run out of it before even arriving at the Shire.

Fíli, however, wasn't responding. He stared at the caravan with eyes too large and face too pale; he looked like he'd seen a ghost.

And then: "Sifa," said with emphasis and an odd sort of fear.

Kíli looked around, and caught sight of what Fíli saw- a dame moving between the horses carefully, dark hair braided neatly. His breath caught; before he knew it, Fíli was moving forward, sliding through the fog. He cursed lowly and followed.

A moment later, he saw that Fíli had, indeed, been right.

Fíli was a little slighter than the average dwarf, but he was big enough to match Sifa- his brother was wrapped around her, hands pressing against her shoulders, crushing her to his chest. Sifa had her arms up, as well, and she looked somewhere between startled and- relieved.

"It's good to see you," she said, muffling it into his shoulder.

Fíli nodded, and whispered something to her. All Kíli heard was a ragged -missed you in Khuzdul; Sifa swallowed, reaching up and tracing his face with a careful hand.

They had known Sifa since they were too young to remember. She was the same age as Kíli and had been betrothed to Fíli since Dís had arrived at Ered Luin, bearing a three-year old son and a newborn. Kíli remembered her as a quiet shadow behind them, playing when necessary but mostly content to sit in the same room as them and be left alone.

A week before she reached her majority, however, it was revealed that her father had stolen the Pearls of Kartul, and in the space of a few weeks they had gone from tentative friendship to never seeing each other. The betrothal contract had been cancelled almost immediately.

For some reason, Fíli had gone looking for her after that. They had struck up a friendship and stuck through with it, though Kíli never knew what had happened. His brother was a little proud and a lot loud, and what Kíli knew of Sifa was that she was a lot proud and a little loud; he did not know what they had in common.

Kíli had known they had become friends, and that they remained close even when he and Fíli left, but he had not known they'd gotten this close.

Little wonder that Fíli had refused to do much more than flirt on the quest.

But then she pushed him, slightly, and stepped away.

"There's much I've to tell you," she said.

Fíli blinked. "I bet I have more," he told her. "Giant spiders, and trolls, and shape-shifting man-bears, and more."

Sifa said archly, "It's not a competition, Fíli. Though I think you're a bit more invested in the Kubis betrothal than I am in trolls you've already defeated?"

In the space between two breaths, Fíli went from teasing to bright red to scheming.

"That bastard is still hanging around?"

Sifa grinned. "He offered to ignore my heritage, too, last time. I told him that was quite unnecessary, and joined the caravan soon as I could."

"So I have Kubis to thank for your presence," grumbled Fíli.

"I told you he wasn't all bad," she chirped. Then her eyes caught Kíli's, staring at them awkwardly, and her face lit up.

"Kíli!"

He stepped forward, but then her entire bearing shifted, grew formal: shoulders rising, head tipping back. All levity faded from her face. Deliberately, she swept a curtsy, and held it. Kíli glanced back and saw his mother behind them, eyes grim.

"Meeting the others?" She asked evenly.

"Just doing our duty as princes," said Fíli, and he said it with a straight face, too.

Kíli kept his as innocent as he could.

Dís arched her eyebrow. "Princely duty?"

"Aye," Kíli chimed in, "princely duty, Amad! You ought to be glad, almost having their heads bashed in's done wonders for your sons!"

Kíli couldn't help the way his eyes dragged to Sifa, after that, but he sorely regretted it; Dís' face went stone-like again, and she turned to her.

"You did not say you were close to my sons, when you asked to come."

Sifa rose from her curtsy dignifiedly. She stood very straight, and very stiff. "I was not asked, Your Majesty," she said. "And I did not believe it important. After all- would you deny me a place in Erebor simply for a childhood relationship?"

Dís frowned thunderously. "My sons are-"

"-adults," finished Sifa. Her eyes flicked to Fíli, and then Kíli, and then back. "Heroes, even, according to the lays still being written. I am sure they know what constitutes a proper companion." Before anyone could say anything, she disappeared into the bulk of the caravans, still hidden with morning fog.

Kíli offered his mother a vague smile.

They had defeated Smaug just over a month previous, and their Uncle had woken less than a week ago, and already they had trouble brewing. Kíli glanced back at Fíli, who mouthed "Tauriel," at him, and he felt his mood drop.

…

"When'd you guys become- close?"

Fíli finished drying his face and beard, and turned to look at his younger brother.

Kíli was always laughing, and when he wasn't, he was fighting. The age difference was little, and Fíli was used to treating him as a mix of friend, twin and second set of eyes- but Kíli was his younger brother, for all that he rarely acted it.

He was sure he wasn't imagining the threads of hurt in Kíli's voice.

"You know we became friends a few weeks after the betrothal was broken off," he said cautiously. Sat down on the bed, and waved Kíli to the washing area while he dug through one of his bags for a comb. "I didn't know she was my One until I wasn't seeing her everyday. I missed her- and pitied her, when I found out why our betrothal was broken off." He laughed. "She set me straight on that!"

"Yelled at you?" Kíli asked curiously.

"Kicked me out," said Fíli. "Told me she didn't need my pity, not for all the gold of Ered Luin. And barred her rooms to me. It was the loudest I'd ever seen her."

Which truly wasn't that loud, now that he thought about it. She had lifted her chin, clenched her jaw, and told him to get out in a voice that sang of lightning and old fury.

Kíli snorted and came out of the wash area. He took the comb and began hunting the tangles, grimacing- his hair had grown coarser over the past months, and recovering in the healing tents after the Battle had only made it worse.

Fíli rolled his eyes and leaned forward, snatching the comb out of his hands.

"No patience," he said flatly, twirling his finger. Kíli's face grew darker for a moment, and then he turned, surrendering to Fíli's hands.

"So you fell in love for that?"

"No. Not- quite." Fíli wrestled with a knot, and heaved a huge sigh. "But it did not hurt. I just- sat with her. When she was very hurt. And then, when Uncle asked for us to go, and Amad was refusing, and it seemed like everyone was just crazy- Sifa stood by me."

Kíli twisted to look at him. "And me?"

Ah, Kíli- Fíli thought, it's nothing against you. I've loved you, and cared for you, and my heart is ever yours. But as you have Tauriel, I have Sifa.

"You were sulking about being passed over by Uncle," Fíli pointed out. "Sifa had little to do with the whole… issue. She was very calm about it, too."

Those months, when Thorin had wanted to reclaim Erebor and battled their mother over taking them or not, had been the worst that Fíli knew. He had wanted to scream, had wanted to go with the deepest pits of his soul- and he did not know if he could have borne leaving his mother.

"Your mother loves you," Sifa had told him, when he told her what was going on. "And so does your Uncle. They just have different ways of showing it- what is left for your mother, after all, if you die? She worries; your Uncle worries. But Fíli- we do what we must. What can you live with? What can you live with losing? Choose, and stand."

"You never told me," Kíli murmured.

Fíli sighed. "It wasn't… like that. We didn't have anything between us, Kíli- just, I don't know, an arrangement? We didn't talk about it. There was something- but it isn't like Amad would ever accept us, and we never talked about it."

"Why not?"

"Because I wanted to talk to her right before we left with Uncle, and when I told her I was leaving she told me I would die." He winced at the bald-faced statement- but it was true.

Fíli didn't say that he'd been rather glad that they'd fought, particularly after the trolls, and the goblins, and Mirkwood- when he was sure he wouldn't survive, and he'd break his mother's heart. At least there was one person who would not pause to mourn him, even if she would remember him.

It was the most selfish thing he knew to be.

Kíli's hair finally unknotted, Fíli finished tying off his own.

The vast majority of the rooms in Erebor were still being cleaned. Fíli and Kíli, as royalty, could well have taken their own rooms, but with the arrival of their mother's caravan space was in short order, and it wasn't like it was an issue, sharing with Kíli. At least it gave them some privacy.

"If she was unhappy about that, why'd she come to Erebor?" Kíli threw out.

Fíli snorted. "I don't know. But first guess? Kubis annoyed her, and she couldn't get away quick enough."

"Mmm. Sure she isn't here for the gold?" Kíli flapped his hands at Fíli's outraged expression. "It's somethin' we have to think about, nadad."

"Yes," Fíli said bluntly. "We have a kingdom to think about, now. Speaking of-"

"No, don't-!"

"-what will you tell Amad and Uncle of your elf?"

Kíli fell back on the bed, groaned into a pillow. He looked like he regretted it a second later- the Company had cleaned up, but the pillows weren't as dust-free as Bombur'd assured them. Fíli knew the sensation of dust in his nose, and it wasn't pleasant.

"D'you disapprove of her?" Kíli sniffed.

"I-" Fíli faltered. "She saved your life. When Uncle didn't believe it to be in danger. I don't like her, Kíli: she threw us in prison. She's a Guard to the pretty elf-king, and I hate him. If I could kill him, I wouldn't stop for a moment."

"She saved my life," Kíli repeated.

"Yes," he said, after a long pause. "She did. And for that- I'll be in her debt. Forever."

Kíli looked startled. "Fíli-"

"What you decide, nunur'amrâb, I will follow." Fíli offered him a smile. It was a little strained, he knew- but then, his little brother yearned for an elf. Kíli's One was an elf, and-

Deep breaths. He'd get through this. Head held high, teeth gritted, swords protecting Kíli's back as he'd done since long before he could remember.

He did not do it for loyalty owed, or seeing Kíli's love for the elf- though that did not hurt.

It was for the love Fíli had for his younger brother, and what he would die for. How many times had Fíli dreamt it? Kíli would dive into danger, and Fíli would dive after him, and Fíli would spend his last breath protecting his younger brother.

No price too high, nunur'amrâb. None for you.

"Thank you," Kíli breathed.

Fíli nodded once, brusquely, and gestured to the door. "We should get going. And I don't know where you've stashed Tauriel- but better get started on a plan to announce her, Kíli. It'll be worse if they find out on their own."

"It'll look like I'm ashamed." Kíli nodded. "Fine, then. Tonight sounds good."

He walked out.

Fíli blinked, choked, and decided that he would strangle Kíli as soon as he could catch him. Damn it all to hell, he had to catch up to the idiot now-

…

"Amad's going to kill us both," Fíli moaned.

It was true. And if she didn't, Thorin would. If he didn't- there was a host of dwarves who wouldn't hesitate to draw a knife over Tauriel's neck, if they didn't do it to him first.

Too many ifs. What was that saying of Balin's? Ah, yes: no use crying over possibilities when reality's punching you.

Tauriel stood beside them, wearing a pale green robe that reminded Kíli of fog through mountain shrubbery. Her long hair hung free, and she had a wickedly curved knife sheathed at her waist. By the way Fíli had winced seeing her- she must not look very peaceful.

"Why will she kill you?" Kíli hissed back.

Fíli rolled his eyes. "I'm supposed to keep you out of trouble. Idiot. She'll roast you first, sure- and I'll be next."

Tauriel arched a delicate eyebrow. "Is this about me?"

"Yes."

"No!"

They glared at each other, until Kíli spun away and told her, sincerely, "It's just that you're a… delicate topic. To everyone."

"And their mother," muttered Fíli.

Kíli glared at him until he threw up his hands and stalked to the other end of the hall. Fíli was a wonderful brother, but sometimes he didn't think. Tauriel deserved kindness, not contempt. Though Fíli never had been one for being nice to everyone- he was polite, certainly, when necessary, but never charming.

And now, he and Tauriel could talk, alone, for probably the first time in weeks.

"I'm not sure I understand why we're waiting," she said.

Kíli swallowed. "It's 'cause we're waiting for everyone to come in, that will. We're dining as- as family, so it's pretty informal, and there won't be too many people there. Just Mother, and Uncle, and the Company, and the Company's close-kin."

"And in this group, you wish to- what?"

"Declare you."

Tauriel's eyes flickered a dangerous, fey green. "Declare me as what?"

"Ah." Kíli hadn't thought this through. Which Fíli had tried to tell him, but it wasn't like he'd paid attention… Time to backtrack. "Well. Tauriel- it's just, you don't have a home, you know, the jumped-up elf-king's gone and banished you, and I just thought-"

"I would like to stay with you."

"Yes." He swallowed.

"That is a dangerous assumption," she said quietly. "I saved your life, and I paid a price for that. Have I ever said I would offer more?"

He could feel the hurt bubbling up, in his face. "Then- what will you do?"

"I've always wished to see the world."

"So you're not going to stay."

Tauriel sighed. "Well. I sacrificed a lot for you. I do not intend to let that go to waste- and I do not wish to leave, yet. But if I stay, it will not be as your lover, or- anything else. When I wish to leave, you will not stop me."

"I can declare you?" Kíli asked, smile starting to light up his face.

"Is this the only way I can stay in Erebor?"

Kíli nodded.

"Then, yes- I shall stay." Tauriel reached forward and flicked his forehead. "But heed my words. I do not stay where I do not wish. Not any longer."

He reached forward, gripped her hands. The fingers were so long, and thin, and fine, and he was clumsy, and awkward, and nothing like the elegance of elves, but she wanted him- and he'd nearly ruined that, because he didn't use his head-

"Alright. Let's go." Kíli glanced into the peephole- the room was filled with everyone, it seemed- and breathed deep. "And, Tauriel? I am sorry. I should have considered that- it is your own life."

"Yes, it is," she said plainly. Her eyes had softened a little, though: flashy forest green to a quieter, calmer moss. "But we are all allowed one mistake, are we not? Worry not, Morwinion. I will not run in the dark, like a coward."

Fíli stomped back, looking like a miniature thunder-cloud for all his golden hair.

"Are you ready?" He growled.

Tauriel pressed a hand to his shoulder. "And you say he supports us?"

Kíli snorted. "Fíli's all bark and no bite." A sharp smile. "Or maybe some bite. But he likes you. You don't have to worry about him, really." They turned to head inside, and he said, "Morwinion?"

Tauriel smiled thinly and gestured to the door, which Fíli had already disappeared behind.

…

Kíli stepped forwards, hand in Tauriel's.

It took a moment for the dwarves to notice, but they surely did- silence spread radially outwards from the door. Dís and Thorin, at a farther table, took time to notice. When they did- Fíli winced.

His uncle went red.

Kíli either didn't notice, or didn't care. Knowing his brother, it was didn't notice and wouldn't care either way if I had, and that had worked when they were young; to a lesser extent on the Quest. But now Fíli was sure it wouldn't, and he didn't want to see Kíli's temper when that was revealed to him.

He made directly for their mother's table, chin lifted, and gestured to Tauriel beside him.

"I wish to introduce Tauriel, Amad," he said clearly. Dragged her forward a little and stepped back, though he didn't stop talking. "She saved my life in Laketown, when I was struck by a Morgul arrow. And afterwards, in the Battle- without her, I would not be here."

Dís' face wasn't ever as dour as Thorin's, and so Fíli wasn't sure if she was just as angry about this as Thorin looked; he was just sure that someone was going to burst, and he couldn't let Kíli's heart break like that.

Plus, he'd promised.

"Amad," he murmured, stepping forward. Hands clear and calm and empty, no matter how much he ached for a sword while seeing Thorin's face. "Sh- Tauriel is a good person." Careful, careful; he didn't know her well, and he dared not lie- stick to truths, let his mother draw her own conclusions. "Saved Kíli's life when I couldn't." Quick glance to Thorin, who was drawing breath to speak. "And Uncle wouldn't."

That still burned. They were blood, and blood cared for blood. Thorin had, for so very long, been Uncle and Father; the first time they'd met with Thorin the King- he'd abandoned them. Lost to dragon-sickness, yes, but still him.

Something must have shown on his face, for Thorin suddenly deflated. Dís turned to him incredulously, and he grimaced.

"And in the Battle, she was very brave." Shallow breath in; make sure you're balanced and you know what you're doing, and then leap off the cliff. "Without her, I'd have an Orc axe in my head."

Silence. Dís' face was softer, and Thorin looked- tense. Dwalin was frowning thunderously, Balin was stroking his beard, and the rest of the Company looked horrified.

Fíli nodded, once, and stepped back. He'd done what he could- said his piece. If Kíli ruined it, he had only himself to blame.

Kíli- who could only look more surprised if he'd been propositioned by an Orc.

...which wasn't something he needed to imagine, not ever.

"She is my One, Amad," said Kíli, and Fíli would smash his brother's head into a damned Oliphaunt if he thought it would help matters. Did he ever think before opening his mouth?

No. Obviously not.

"Your One?" She asked, dangerously quiet.

Kíli, once more displaying no common sense, said, blithely, "Yes. I might have asked a little later, but- I was a bit too injured to talk to Uncle until now, and then you were here, and it was perfect!" He shrugged and barrelled on, and Fíli could only watch the wreck with horrified eyes.

"Perfect," said Dís.

"She wants to stay here," he continued. "So I wanted to get approval from you, and Uncle."

"Approval," said Dís.

"Yes! If I am to court her, then it is necessary, is it not? Anyways, she's been-"

"I think," broke in Tauriel- and it said something when it took an elf to save them from that- "that perhaps I might explain?"

Kíli nodded, a bit too eagerly.

So he'd felt the awkardness, then, at least a little. Fíli did not bite his lip- a bit hard to do with all the hair- but he did shift a little, just enough to balance on the balls of his feet. Not threatening, not yet-

"I met your son when he trespassed in Mirkwood," she began. "Perhaps not by design, but trespass nonetheless, as stated by King Thranduil. He was very kind, and spoke to me as no prisoner ever had. Elves- we so rarely feel strong emotions, but he made me laugh, as I hadn't for centuries. I followed their escape, kept the Orcs from their backs. I was- delayed, getting to Laketown. I saved him, as a healer. And then, I saved him, once more, during the Battle." Fíli saw the lines grooving her mouth deepen, just for an instant, and then she turned to him. "My apologies, to Prince Fíli: I do not remember the Orc I saved you from."

Fíli nodded once, sharply, in response.

Tauriel's chin jerked down, once, as if she'd decided something.

Then she turned to their mother, and her voice softened. "Your son offers me the chance to laugh, and live. He is a very kind dwarf; he is a noble, brilliant one, as well. We have stood together in the heat of battle. Will you offer me a chance to stand by him in peace?"

It was a good speech. Good enough to convince everyone? Fíli sighed, inwardly. The rage of dwarves and elves was old, for good reason. It would take a lot, to bank it.

"I care nothing for elves," Dís said bluntly, and Kíli flinched. Tauriel, however, remained impassive. "And less for my son to love one. But for all that- you have saved my son's life. You have saved both my sons' lives." She pursed her lips unhappily. "We would be poor hosts indeed, to force you away after being in your debt."

Thorin looked steadily angrier as she finished speaking. He made a quick motion with his hands to Balin, who shook his head, and another to Dwalin, who nodded slowly; the Iglishmêk too fast for Fíli to see.

"It is binamsâl to turn away one you are in debt to," said Balin, and fell silent.

"Amad," began Kíli, only for her to wave him back.

"Thorin?" She asked.

Uncle was still a faint shade of pink, but he looked- calmer. He looked over the gathering, took a breath, exhaled, and breathed in once more.

"You'll be placed under guard," he said.

Fíli felt a smile grow on his face. Kíli was staring between Tauriel and Thorin like he couldn't believe it. Tauriel folded her long frame into a bow, and said, "Hantalyë, Aran'Erebor." Straightened, stiffly, and said, "I thank you, King of Erebor."

"You saved my sister-son," Uncle said gruffly. "I may not like it, but Erebor needs no more bad luck. You may stay, but you'll be under guard."

"I ask for no more," she said, lifting her chin.

"Good," growled Uncle. "Now." He raised his hands, black hair glittering in the lamplight. "Let us feast!"

Their cheers could have been heard in the Blue Mountains.

…

"You didn't say you were banished," said Kíli.

Tauriel refrained from rolling her eyes, though it was a close thing. Kíli was a kind person, and she thought they could forge something more- but she wasn't fool enough to base a lifetime on a single battle.

"No, I did not."

"Why?"

"Because I will not live here on their pity."

She remembered cold air whistling through her fingertips, the sting of an arrow across the inside of her wrist, the long nights spent staring at the stars. Thranduil had accepted her out of pity; he'd raised her when her parents were slaughtered.

Tauriel paid him back with every ounce of duty she could manage. A thousand years as the steady, unflinching shadow beside the King of Mirkwood.

No. Not beside- behind. She owed much to Thranduil, certainly, but she'd never bargained her soul, or her heart. When he claimed it, when that king dared-

Tauriel left. She kept her head high, and hands unshaking, and she saved a dwarf who allowed her to laugh. She walked into battle, and she'd been sure she wouldn't walk out. When she did…

"I have lived such before," she elaborated, when Kíli only looked confused. "I have asked for shelter and bargained freedom for it. But I cannot- I will not- do so again. And it is not as if I've nowhere else to go. Your people would mistake freedom for homelessness, and I'd rather see distrust than pity."

He inclined his head, slowly. "Alright. Is it a secret?"

"No," Tauriel said plainly. "It isn't. You know, your brother knows; I cannot return to Mirkwood. But that does not mean that is my reason for staying- so, tell whomever you wish."

"Okay." Kíli paused, and rubbed a finger over a dusty surface; screwed up his face and scrubbed it on his leather jerkin, and looked up at her, awkwardly. "What do you- want to do, now?"

She was graceful, and she knew it. But dwarves did not appreciate grace. They liked warriors, and hair- that she would never understand- and food, and-

Tauriel did not know what else.

If she was to live with a dwarf, she damned well better learn what they did for fun. Perhaps more specifically: what Kíli did for fun.

"What do you do? When you're not fighting?" She asked curiously.

Kíli's face lit up, and she knew she'd asked correctly.

"Well, we have this game that Fíli and I used to play in Ered Luin…"

…

The next morning, Fíli found Sifa.

Or rather, she found him, by the simple expedient of walking into his chambers unannounced. Before he could react, she'd stalked up, staring straight into his face, and hissed, "Have you lost your mind?"

He pushed her away, and stepped back. "No," he said warily. "Though you might have."

"Are you joking?" Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not the one who supported an elf as- as the khi'nututredel! And certainly not in front of nunur'aklum!"

"Sifa- you're not making sense."

Her face paled, side-beard standing out. "You are the redêl, Fíli- how can you not see what you've done?"

Fíli frowned. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Clearly." She dropped onto the couch, and then turned to him. "Crown prince of Erebor. Did you just think it a title?"

"...yes?" He said.

Sifa threw up her hands. "People watch you. They think of you in terms of them, and you just gave them fodder that couldn't be better bait if you tried!"

"If you won't explain-" Fíli began, feeling the first twists of impatience.

Sifa eyed him like he was a particularly tricky mining vein. A moment later, she tilted her head at the sofa, and waited for him to sit down.

"Last night, you spoke to your Uncle on behalf of your brother. More to the point, you defended your brother's choices to your Uncle, the King Under the Mountain." She paused. "In front of a gathering of dwarves, who are not royalty."

"Yes," said Fíli, dragging out the syllable.

Sifa made a violent gesture with her hands, before consciously stilling them. "Fíli. You must know that your Uncle is in a dangerous position, right now. He has no army. He took Erebor with a company of thirteen dwarves and a Hobbit, and while nobody disputes his courage- he has no army. Dain's men are… present. But they are loyal to another. And while your Uncle has no army, he has no way to protect what he has taken. If anyone marches on Erebor, it might not fall- but it might, and that's what's important."

"Nobody's invading us yet," he said dryly.

"Because you've got treaties. As long as you honor them, you'll be fine." She spread her fingers, shrugged. "And nobody wants to make the first move, and take the full brunt of the Lonely Mountain's alone."

"Still don't see why I'm a problem."

"Kíli's the younger prince, and the reason why he spoke to your Uncle was obvious," said Sifa. She saw his confusion, and smiled sardonically. "He called the elf his One in front of a lot of people. But you- aren't as obvious." Held up a hand when he tried to speak. "To those who know you, it's clear, but there are a lot of people who don't. And they're assuming you knew what you were coming off as, which might be untrue- but it's what they're thinking, and- oh, Fíli- they saw you defy your King, in a place you knew not to be private. They think you don't support him."

Fíli felt outrage rise up from his belly, thick and heavy, like Bombur's red-pepper stew.

"I am loyal to my Uncle," he said, low and dangerous.

Sifa arched an eyebrow. "I know that. But you need to know the consequences of your actions, Fíli. Who you talk to, what you do. Because you're sending out messages to your people, and we have long memories, and when you take that throne they'll remember it all."

He deflated. Sighed. "I'm not watching everything I say or do."

"I'm not asking you to."

"What are you asking, Sifa?"

"For you to be aware of it." Her eyes, dark and clever, swept over him. "For you to know why. Do what you wish, Fíli, but know what others see of it. Your people- they deserve better. And I know you can do it, as well."

Fíli snorted. "I ran from Balin whenever he tried to teach me anything," he reminded her. "What makes you think this will be different?"

Sifa looked at him steadily. "You're not a fool, no matter how much you try to look like one," she replied coolly. "Don't insult me by asking idiotic questions that you know the answer to."

"I'm not acting," said Fíli, not sure if he was insulted or not.

"Yes," she said flatly. "You are."

She bowed, perfunctory and precise; none of the loose grace of Tauriel, all of the rooted strength of dwarves. Sharp and cutting and still, for all that, a little sardonic. Sifa had never been over-awed by titles or gold, as many others were- Fíli'd heard her scathing opinions on gold-encrusted Iron Hill Lords too many times to be fooled by her manners now.

"You are the redêl," she repeated. "People will watch you. Perhaps you ought to learn to use it."

A small smile that looked gentler than it was, and she left.

Fíli looked after her bemusedly.

…

Tauriel smiled thinly at the dwarf who stood by her door.

The dwarf bared unpleasantly yellow teeth back.

She slammed the door shut and stifled the urge to start screaming.

Six hundred years old- four centuries more than the damned King of this land- and she was being treated like a child! The guards were the most disgusting corpuscles of fat that Oakenshield must have been able to find, and they were just- just rude.

When she'd gone to speak to Kíli yesterday, they'd stayed a foot behind her the whole time.

Perhaps dwarves could bear staying inside, but Tauriel longed for the stars, and the forest damp, and the faint smell of mint that lingered on oak leaves.

In essence, she was going mad.

Her rooms were neatly done, though smaller than she was used to: beds made for dwarves were perhaps three-fourths of her height, and while they'd fixed that problem by slotting two beds together, the blankets weren't as quickly altered. For the past days, she'd occupied herself by sewing the sheets together, and when it became clear her stitches weren't as neat as possible, re-doing them multiple times.

Fine. If I am not to be allowed to use my hands in freedom, I shall do so under supervision. Her jaw firmed. I cannot bear this.

She strapped her double knives to her back with quick, deft movements, and slid her other, smaller one into her boot. She'd shed most of her armor when she was healing in the first days after the Battle, and after that- when Thranduil announced her banishment formally- she'd headed to Kíli's bedside, and not left overlong, ever after. Her armor had been lost, and likely she'd never get it back.

Tauriel was as ready as she'd get.

There was no hesitance when she left her rooms, though she did pause to give her guard time to follow her. No point in making unnecessary enemies, after all.

"Where are the practice grounds?" She asked politely.

The guard eyed her dubiously. "'M not sure you're allowed to use weapons," he said.

Manwë save me from dwarven bluntness.

"I shall never know if I don't try," Tauriel pointed out. "If the Captain of the Guard has any issues, I shall address them directly." Retreated as courteously as she could, and waited.

"Fine," said the dwarf. "Though why a tree-hugger wants to practice with us doesn't make no sense, I guess-"

Tauriel spun on one foot, and pinned him in place with a look that she had learned from Legolas: proud, but not cold.

"I was, not very long ago, the Captain of the Guard of the King of Mirkwood," she said. "I am used to sleeping with three knives and a bow, Master Dwarf. And when I was not battling old terrors in the forest, I was healing. It is not in me to lie silent." She paused. "Is that enough of an answer for you?"

The dwarf's hands tightened on his spear, and then he spoke, slowly. "Aye, I'll take you to the grounds. Mind, Dwalin's Captain, and he's not a tree-lover." A fierce smile took over his face, and Tauriel blinked. "Talk to him like that, lass, and you'll get a spear shoved down your throat."

"I've had elves and Orcs and dwarves try before, Master Dwarf," Tauriel said wryly. "I'm sure I'll survive this one."

He guffawed, and started walking. Tauriel followed him at a sedate pace, content to hold her tongue. When they finally left the tunnels, they came out into a large, open area, lit brightly and filled with dwarves.

Not precisely, surmised Tauriel a moment later. Her first look had given her an impression of a bustling area, but that was not quite true; the area had dwarves sparring, practicing, sharpening weaponry- but there were spaces that were not filled, and she could see, with a Captain's practiced eye, the exact number of what these dwarves had lost.

"What are ye doing here?"

She inhaled sharply, suddenly brought back to herself.

"Captain," she greeted, and made sure she didn't turn to look at those gaps that stared up at her accusingly-

Varë and Lalan, Rhontá and Glie, sins she will never pay for. A scream under dark forest canopies.

Cold breath on her neck: "How does an immortal lie, in death?"

-"What's a tree-hugger doin' here?" He growled.

Gracelessly.

"I hoped to practice my swordsmanship," she said levelly. "It has been some time since I last bore weaponry, and I can scarcely bear idleness- so. To you, Master Dwalin, I ask: may I beg of a blade?"

The courtyard had fallen silent, listening to her speech. Dwalin's great bald head shone under the lamplight, and he eyed her; Tauriel held her position with all the years of practice under Thranduil and waited.

"You're a guest," Dwalin said, finally, grudgingly. "Wouldn't be right to stop you. Go 'head, you can take a sword from the armory o'er that side. Dummies're set up in the back corner."

Tauriel nodded her thanks. She knew others were staring at her, but she didn't let that stop her- years of being Captain allowed her a smooth gait. When she arrived at the armory, the area was empty.

She picked up a sword and hefted it. Heavier than she was used to, but well-balanced; she would have to remember to correct for that weight. Her eyes narrowed in thought. Perhaps not so much correction as a lack of the flowing elegance that elven battle followed, and more of a grounded stance.

There was a dummy set up in a corner, and she took to stabbing at it.

Tauriel frowned. She was not moving fast enough. It need not be graceful, she knew, but speed was her advantage over the strength of the dwarves. If she was sacrificing it so greatly…

Ah. Tauriel felt the puzzle slot into place: moving around the sword. If she was air, with a bow and two knives, and the dwarves were rooted earth- with a sword she would be water.

She held it aloft, and for a moment she could see the cold sunrise a month previous, glinting off a dark-bladed scimitar, carving down onto a body made small-

Lift your sword. Curved sword flashed over hers, pale Orc bearing down. Drop. Hold.

Hold.

Hold.

A scream from across the battle- the barest shift of stance, of the eyes.

Move.

Kick outwards, slam upright. Slash across the chest. Keep away from fallen dwarf. Flow. Heel of foot on instep. Orc flinches away, bury dagger in right, upper half of torso. Twist and remove.

Cut neck open.

Tauriel ended the movement with both blades crossed, the sword half-resting on her other forearm, the lone dagger unsheathed and held in her left. Her eyes had been closed, she realized distantly- not surprising for her, who had dreamt that exact sequence too many times to believe, but certainly unexpected for those watching.

"Not bad," a voice said behind her. Tauriel turned and saw Fíli standing behind her. His long mustache shone with pale beads.

"Prince," she murmured, dipping into a half-bow. She waited, as he stepped closer and, with a short glance, took the sword.

"Good weight," he said neutrally. Then, hefting it: "Do you spar?"

"It's been many years since I last used a single sword," said Tauriel. "But I am not a beginner." A rueful glance at the dummy, which was almost ripped in half. "If you wish to, it would be my pleasure."

Fíli's eyes were a very light blue, almost grey. His entire coloring was different from either his brother or uncle- she wondered whom he took after, then, if the rest of the family was dark-haired and pale-skinned. He was still staring at the sword, and when he looked up, those blue eyes were dark with some emotion.

"I know not what my brother sees in you," he said bluntly, stepping forward. "He has always flirted as he breathes, but never has he gotten so infatuated that he keeps with a lass past a week. And an elf!" Fíli looked, for a moment, infuriated. "An elf of Mirkwood! Uncle would rather accept an Orc."

"King Thorin has allowed me to stay in his halls," Tauriel said mildly.

Fíli waved it away. "But you make him happy. I've stood by three vows my entire life, Lady Tauriel. First, to support my Uncle, and my Mother. Second, to serve by the people of Erebor, be it in exile or not. And last- and most important- to stand by my brother as long as I am able. I do not like elves, and I do not think I ever will. But as long as you bring a smile to my brother's face, I shall stand by you." He said it quietly, soft enough that not even the closest dwarf heard. Then, a little drier, he said, "If you turn on us, I claim your head."

She cocked her head to the side and faced him. "I am banished." It was calm, but he must have heard the thrum of emotion underneath; his eyes widened. "I've no home to betray you to. As to your brother-" Here, she hesitated. "-I am an elf, Prince Fíli. I do not move as quickly as most mortals. I believe I may grow to love Kíli, but that is… still some time away. Until then- I wish to stay, here, to explore what may happen, as it will."

"You understand why I can't believe you?"

"Yes," Tauriel said.

He paused. "You have offered my people as the price for trusting you."

"Your people are not mine to offer," she said levelly. "I have none to betray you to. No land-"

"No honor," growled a dwarf behind Fíli.

"-to loose my arrows for." Tauriel folded her fingers against the inside of her wrist. "I killed Bolg. I healed you, and your brother. What more must I do, to gain your trust?"

Fíli eyed her, and she refused to flinch: he'd pushed, perhaps, but she was the one to lose her temper. And she was the one in a delicate position.

The silence continued, until a lesser person would have twitched. Tauriel, instead, retreated inside of herself and went still.

Then, he laughed. Handed her the sword back, too- unexpectedly- and called something in Khuzdul to the dwarf who'd spoken, who tossed him a pair of swords.

"Would you like to spar?" He asked.

He was going to ignore everyone else, then. Tauriel felt a smile tug at the corner of her lips- she had more practice at superciliousness than the best dwarf. Vala above, she'd been best friends with Legolas, who could be an arrogant idiot when the mood struck him. She could play this game with both eyes closed.

"As I said, I'm not in practice. But- yes."

They stepped into the middle of the ring, and Tauriel felt the outside world fade- there was only Fíli standing before her, and the weight of the sword in her hands. She did not smile, or react- but there was a cold satisfaction in finally bearing weapons, and she knew it showed in her face.

This was home, as close as Tauriel knew. Steel in her hands, blood running hot, danger a hairsbreadth away.

She whirled away when Fíli's sword crashed against hers- stepped to the right and used her height to force his other sword from hers.

In the cool blue of Fíli's eyes, she saw laughter.

No home save the steel in your spine, a monster had spat when she was scarcely old enough to bear a knife. Traitor, it had prophesied.

For so long Tauriel had thought herself cursed. But now, in a mountain she had walked into of her own free will- now, there was something lodged in her chest, and it tasted like freedom.

…

A week later, Fíli went hunting for Sifa.

She was in the Outer Wing- the chambers she'd picked out were of middling size, but she'd managed to decorate the sparse furniture in the two days since she'd arrived.

Dark red, burnt orange, pale yellow; the room was lit with dawn-light, and looked peaceful, in a way his own chamber's opulence would never be able to achieve. Sifa stood before the unopened balcony door, looking outwards.

"You've been avoiding me," he said, loudly, breaking the calm- and knew it sounded like an accusation.

Sifa whirled around, knife in hand. Fíli stumbled backwards, and she growled something out; the door slammed shut behind him, and he had nowhere to run, threat with knife coming towards him-

She froze.

The faint smell of ozone that he'd tasted on the back of his tongue faded, slowly.

"You are lucky I looked," she said flatly. Didn't let go of the knife, but her posture softened a little. "I could have killed you."

"No, you couldn't have," he said.

"No," she agreed grimly, "but I would have tried. And then your mother would have killed me. I quite like my head on my shoulders, redêl."

She called him redêl, as if they'd never known each other. Formal, proper- what had happened?

"I'm not sure I understand," said Fíli.

Sifa's mouth twisted. "Erebor is known- was known- for its magic. Dwarven magic. I used some of it to shut the door. A person entering another's rooms without permission? I could have pinned you down and taken blood for that."

"So that's how you slammed the door shut," he said dryly. "But I was talking about how you look- horrible."

She exhaled loudly, and it sounded like a half-laugh; inclined her head and strode to the couch, where she sank into the cushions.

"Sit down," she said, waiting until he had before continuing. "I'm sorry. But you don't know- everything. Or anything, really."

He spread his hands. "Then explain."

Her dark eyes met his, dipped away, and returned. For a moment, she looked sad. "It's not quite simple."

"You sure?"

"I-" Sifa faltered. "Fine." Her posture stiffened, once more. "You know about Kubis. He asked for my hand, for the first time, years ago; he tried again last year; he attempted once more after you left. And then, as I told you, I left Ered Luin."

"That's not the whole story, though," Fíli realized. He saw the way she kept her neck stiff, trying to hide something- and wondered if he could have misread the situation any more than he had.

Sifa looked miserable.

"No," she agreed. "Kubis had many friends, and I- did not. There was one time when I was in my chambers, and- someone entered. I've no idea who; they put a knife to my throat and told me it was no less than an honor for me to be chosen by such a Lord."

"I will-"

"Shut up," she said calmly, and his jaw snapped shut. "I've never told this to anyone. It is difficult. But if I am to tell you, I will speak, and you will listen."

Fíli swallowed, and nodded.

She breathed in, and said, "I got used to being watched. I got used to being threatened. Years- Mahal, Fíli, it was going on before you ever left!" Fíli did not flinch, at that. But he did shuffle a little. Sifa might not blame him, but if it had been going on for years-

"Did everyone know?" He asked lowly.

Sifa shook her head, and he breathed out slowly. "You were- busy. I don't blame you for that, Fíli. But there was nobody I trusted to help me. So… I trained. As you never knew- as I never told you- but I'm a fairly deft hand with knives, and give me a halberd and I won't embarrass myself." Her face grew hard. "When he asked for the third time, I knew there would be no other chances. I'd either agree, or he would act. I begged for some time, and then packed what I could and left with your mother." Lips twisting, she added, "Had to wait a week, though, for everyone else, and hiding in Ered Luin? Not the best idea."

"I bet," muttered Fíli. Ered Luin had few areas to hide. It was what made it a good place to go if one wanted to be on the side of the law, but otherwise- not so much.

She nodded. "I got used to people bursting in my rooms. And on the way from Ered Luin, I swore that I would not allow it to happen here- I was going mad, in those halls. I could not have stood it, here, if it continued."

"I- don't blame you," Fíli said haltingly, trying to find and avoid the sharp edges of the conversation. "Is that why you're so thin? I mean. You're in Erebor, now- you don't have to worry. About him, at least."

"Perhaps." Sifa shrugged. "I am… used to it. It is difficult to let that paranoia- go." A quick frown. "You never felt such, Fíli? On the Quest- you never thought, after seeing what you'd seen- I'll never sleep again?"

"Mostly we were too tired to think, by the time we slept," Fíli said wryly and snorted. "But. You know that after the Battle- the last one- Uncle and Kíli were both injured? Badly, too. And there were elves, running around the place, and Dain's men, and then there were the Men- everything was in a damn bloody mess. And we'd taken Erebor, but nobody was doing anything, and I- had to act. As King."

Sifa looked faintly sympathetic, and her lips turned up, slightly, at the edges.

"I got a whole treaty drawn up, and then Gandalf cleansed the mountain of dragon sickness- let me tell you, we all felt lighter coming in after that- and, you know, I send in carts of gold to help Laketown, I'm still trying to make sure Dain's men don't kill the Mirkwood elves 'cause they're the only ones with food when it comes down to it-" he broke off. "Anyways. It was a long month. A longer two months before it, and a longer year before that- but. As I was doing it, I still didn't know if Uncle or Kíli are going to survive."

"You didn't know what would happen to them for a month?" Sifa asked, looking surprised.

Fíli grimaced. "Kíli was awake in a week. Uncle took… longer. And even then, they had to stay in the healer's tents. So. My dreams are of- of them. Them, dead."

Specifically, Kíli beheaded, and Uncle speared under Azog's blade, but there was no reason to go into such detail. Sifa's eyes, alit with pity, said enough already.

"But I'm doing better," he hurried to add.

"Mmm. I am- not." She sighed. "Not that I was expecting to, but it was a good hope, I suppose." Sifa saw the look in his eyes, and said, "I am still trying."

The bite to her voice told him to back off. I never thought I would be the one giving emotional advice, he thought, and folded his hands in Iglishmek for formal-apology. Sifa's cheeks turned a faint pink, and she looked startled.

"Yes. Well." She coughed. "I'm sure you came for something other than- this."

"Yes," said Fíli. "But I don't rememb- oh. Um. It's just that- well- you've been avoiding me."

"No, I haven't-" she paused, and looked slightly guilty. "I had my reasons." Sifa looked more flustered than he'd ever seen her. "Not that I think you'd accept them, but there are things I've- found out. Coming to Erebor was not just to escape Kubis, I assure you."

"Will you tell me?"

"No." She winced. "Well- if it is necessary that you know, I shall tell you. I came with four secrets, and you know of one of them, now: Kubis. And I suppose you deserve the next one, as well."

He blinked. "I do?"

"Mmm." A sharp, secretive smile that faded into a look of faint worry. "I learned much, as you might know- some of Erebor, some of my blood; mostly, however, of myself. Do you remember what I told you, when you left?"

"Apart from you're an idiot for even trying?" Fíli asked dryly.

She arched an eyebrow. "Yes."

"...something along the lines of 'stand firm,' yes?"

"Something along those lines." She laughed, softly. "Learn what you can stand. And what you cannot bear. And stand." Her eyes darted away from his. "I offered that to you, but took my own advice, Fíli."

"What is it, then, that you cannot bear?"

Sifa's spine straightened, and she faced him firmly. "I cannot- I will not- lie in your bed." Grimaced a little, and corrected, though her cheeks turned a faint pink: "I will not have sex with you."

Fíli frowned. "Why?"

"Because I've no wish to. Because I do not feel what other dames feel; I feel only disgust, when the acts are described." She shrugged easily. "Or even if there is no disgust, I do not wish for someone to do such to me. And I do not wish to do it to others."

"Have you not sworn to the path of khabbûna?" He asked, and felt a flicker of grief for futures untold; but if such was Sifa's choice, he wouldn't stand in her way.

Sifa swallowed. "I am selfish," she said. "And I've always been so. I have not sworn to that path, because I- while I've no desire for the warmth of flesh, I've always wanted a partner." She bowed her head and confessed, voice just over a whisper, "I could not bear to be alone for a lifetime."

"Sifa," said Fíli. It was plea and question both: she understood it.

"I've not sworn to that path, and I never will," she said, the vow curling around the both of them like a chill wind. "Even if you do not wish to stay with me, even if you've decided on someone else, my choice remains the same."

"I… shall not claim to understand," said Fíli. "But even I know that the only thing that would be your duty is to bear a child, Sifa. That might be a bit difficult without sleeping with me, but-"

"I like children," interrupted Sifa. "I've always wanted some. For such a purpose, I shall bear it- and yes, Fíli, that was a pun, I'm learning-"

"-I'm sure we can figure something out," finished Fíli. Sent her a smirk. "But good, at least your sense of humor's improving."

Sifa rose, and stepped forwards; placed the knife carefully on a bone-carved table and knelt before him. This close, he could see the grief lining her shoulders; the age, where there should only have been laughter.

"You deserve a dame who can offer you what- pleasure you desire," she said. "I don't- I don't soften, Fíli. I am not going to change; or if I do, it will be by my own choice, and none of yours. You deserve one who will place you first."

Fíli swallowed, hard, and thought, you will not kneel to me, and that is more precious than mithril. As you ought to know.

"Do you know whom they will place first, Sifa? Redêl, or myself?" He asked quietly.

"You are the crown prince of Erebor. There is no difference."

He winced. "There is. I am not always- prince. I would go insane, if I was. I am Fíli, brother and son and nephew and friend; I need time to remember that. Or I'd go like Uncle- old and brooding and- old. Did I say old?"

"Yes," she said. Laughed, a little, and then sobered. "But this is the rest of your life, Fíli. And I tell you this: I will not be your friend alone. If I am to marry you, I shall be the only one in your heart. I cannot accept you lying in another's bed. Call me selfish, call me- whatever. If you walk into a life with me, you will do so knowing what you lose."

He nodded, slowly. It was fair, what she said; it was honest, and just, and offered him a way out of something he'd promised. Fíli looked, steadily, at her.

Sifa was- was- was dark-winter-nights-candles-stone. She was heather on storm-beaten hillsides, and coldly flickering stars, and quiet shadows that never left. She was duty, and honor, and pride.

He owed it to her to understand what she was telling him.

Fíli rose to his feet, and stepped past her. Sifa turned to face him.

Her face was limned with firelight, all gold and shadows. The dark strands of her hair that framed her face looked gilded. For just a moment, she looked exhausted, and then grief-struck; it faded, when she met his gaze, replaced by a sort of soft kindness.

I owe you nothing. I am the prince of Erebor, and you are the disgraced daughter of a thief. You could have waited until I'd bound myself to you, and then refused me your bed- you could have used me, and you have not.

"As you have acted, I shall match you," he said formally, and sketched a bow. "Sifa, daughter of Glifa: I know what I will lose. And what I shall win. Upon the fortnight, I shall give my answer to this."

One hand was pressed to her mouth; the other gripped the table.

"Honor for honor, kindness for kindness," she breathed, and then stood. Curtsied, precisely, and said, "May Mahal shine down on you, redêl. Your request is granted."

…

"I'm not sure what you're waiting for."

Dís waited, as Thorin glared at her. She was not going to lose this battle to Thorin's idiocy, that much was obvious.

"It's- complicated."

She didn't move.

"He's not a dwarf."

"That's why we have the position of Consort," she said dryly. When Thorin puffed up, she continued blithely. "And also why it's not lesser to any other title in our country. Thorin- what are you thinking? Master Baggins is liked by everyone who's met him, he's admired by everyone else- he likes you- so what is the problem?"

Thorin tugged at the lapels of his coat, straightening them compulsively. The look he levelled at her through the mirror had, at one point, made a guard in Ered Luin spontaneously burst into tears.

Dís was made of sterner stuff than that.

"If you don't talk I'll take the offer to him by myself," she threatened. "I'm sure I can get Balin to draw up a contract-"

"I don't know if he wants to stay."

And… to that, she had no words. Mahal's bones, what had she done to get stuck with a brother so impossible dense? This was punishment for something. It had to be. Nobody could be so oblivious.

Aware that her jaw was hanging open unattractively, she snapped it shut. "You think the Hobbit that- no. No."

"No?" Thorin asked slowly.

"No, I cannot handle your moronic tendencies to-" Dís broke off and rubbed her temples. "Did you lose what little brains you had when that Orc smashed your head?"

"Dís." He looked honestly insulted.

Which was good. But Dís would drill it into his head, because- well. Because Thorin was her brother.

"I'm going to say this in little words, so I'm sure you understand." Dís stared at him until he nodded. "Bilbo Baggins could have left for his home before you woke up. He could have left any time after you woke up. He can pack his bags anytime he wants, and leave!" She pushed her chair back with a screech and forced herself into Thorin's space, until he turned around to face her. "If you don't tell him, Thorin, I will, and it's not because I think you're an imbecile."

He arched an eyebrow. "Then what is it?"

"Because your love deserves better," Dís said, flatly. "And- Thorin, I know you. You'll wave goodbye to the Hobbit from the battlements, and you'll watch him go, and you'll spend the rest of your life miserable because you couldn't believe you deserved that tiny bit of happiness."

Thorin was a romantic. He certainly enjoyed looking majestic and brooding and unhappy, and Dís could accept that- had accepted it, for such a long time- but she would not allow him to drag an innocent person down into his own hole of misery just because he thought it added to his character.

...which was probably unfair, but in all honesty, not by a lot.

"Fine. I'll talk to him tomorrow."

Dís gaped at him for a moment.

"Master Baggins has changed you," she said finally. "I don't think you've ever given in so easily, not even when you were ten."

"Oh, shut up," Thorin said irritably. And then, as she was leaving the room: "You weren't alive when I was ten, Dís."

"No, but Frérin was, and he gossiped," she said, and slammed the door behind her.

…

Kíli was sparring with Tauriel- this was now a thing that they did, when he wasn't too busy. And he was winning, damn it all to hell. He threw himself back, dipped forward, took the blow from her sword on his left vambrace and was going to swing around-

Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

It was a very pretty ceiling. All dark green with gold veins and the odd silver one shot through. The whole thing was shiny, as well, and all dwarves knew shiny things were the prettiest things. Maybe he could just- lie here, and marvel at the beauty of Erebor's ceilings. Yes. That would be very, very good.

"-Kíli. Kíli. If you can hear me-" Kíli twitched, and saw a red-bearded dwarf lean back with a sigh of relief.

"He's alright," he said.

Tauriel came into his view, and she looked so worried that he nearly lost his desire to stare at ceilings for the rest of his life.

"I thought you were balanced," she said. "I'm pretty sure I gave you ample time to react, too. Kíli-" She leaned forward, ignoring the hisses from the other dwarves. "-what is going on?"

He stared up at her, and then scrabbled for purchase on the ground for leverage. When she realized what he was doing, her face twisted, but she offered her arm for support.

"Thanks," he grunted out.

Dwalin was glaring at him, but Kíli just shrugged unrepentantly and allowed her to pull him to his feet. When he reached for his sword, though, Dwalin snapped.

"You've done enough damage to that thick skull of yours for today," he growled, and snatched the sword out of his hand.

Kíli accepted that with a grump, and left.

Tauriel followed him.

"Kíli?" She asked, voice turning a little sharper.

"Mm?" He offered her a grin and continued walking to his rooms.

Inside, he looked about- but, no. Fíli wasn't there. As he hadn't been for almost three days. The only times Kíli'd seen his brother had been during official sessions and the night- the rest of the time, he'd buggered off to bother someone else.

Which didn't particularly bother him. But. Fíli was his brother.

If there was something wrong, surely Fíli would tell him? Or, maybe not. Kíli was the loud one, while Fíli was- the responsible one. Not really, though. Kíli could always tempt him into pranks and all, but without him Fíli'd probably have hung out with Ori of all people.

Again, not a bad thing. Still. He'd probably be obsessed with parchment and quill-cutting competitions or whatever the scribes did. Ori was so weird. What did he do for fun, curate historical records?

Kíli shuddered.

And was pinned in place by a pair of eyes that could outshine emeralds. Ah, if only Fíli had someone like that-

He does.

Bugger, that. He really could have done better.

"I am losing my patience," Tauriel said flatly.

Kíli grinned at her and shook off his worry. It probably wasn't anything, anyways.

"You should probably talk to Mother," he said.

"What."

"The Lady Dis. My mother." Kíli shucked off his mail overcoat and slumped into a seat. "She wants to meet you."

Tauriel looked like she was one step away from forcibly shaving his beard. "You couldn't have told me this before?"

"I found out at breakfast," Kíli replied defensively.

"It's been three hours since-" Tauriel made an inarticulate sound, and strode away sharply. It was the angriest Kíli'd ever seen her, and he thought temper quite suited her: the flush high on her cheeks was so alluring.

"Kíli," Tauriel said, a little desperately, "please tell me she doesn't want to meet today."

"She doesn't want to meet today," he repeated dutifully, because he couldn't help the small part of him that was still twenty. "But, she does."

And dodged the blow that was almost too fast to see.

He threw up his hands, shielding his face. "Mercy!" He cried, and then lowered them slowly, peeking at her. "After dinner. Probably a couple hours before supper. You don't have to dress up, Tauriel. She just wants to talk."

"Oh, like you just wanted to introduce me?" She asked, and sounded on the verge of hysteria. "Excuse me if I've little faith in your definition of other people's intentions!"

"Is Mother really that scary?"

Tauriel's eyes went flat, like a fish. She levelled a look at him that might have made him cringe, had he not been Kíli.

"Your Uncle follows what she says, and he is the most stubborn person I know." Tauriel shook her head. "If Lady Díscan cow him- I'm afraid I've no chance."

Kíli arched both eyebrows comically. "Ah, but Mother's got a century and more under her belt, beating back Uncle's hopes. She's been working on you for only- a couple days, right? You'll be fine."

Tauriel stared at him for a long moment, before he finally saw the faint twitch of her lips- he grinned at her, making it grow.

"Dwarves," she said exasperatedly, though there was faint laughter there as well. "You'd stand in Morgoth's own lair and call him a little cruel."

"You know us too well."

"I-" Tauriel sighed. "You know, in Mirkwood, one only speaks to the parents of their betrothed or more after marriage. It makes all kinds of things easier." She tugged at a sleeve. "And, I don't like talking to your- family. They make things so dramatic, all of them!"

Kíli smothered a laugh in his sleeve. "You served under Thranduil for half a millennia."

"Point taken," she said, after a moment.

There was a long pause, and then Kíli tipped his head to the side and asked, "Are you really worried?"

Because if she was, he could do something. There was little enough laughter from everybody- the Company were too busy to actually relax and have a good time, and Dain's men were just all sticks in the mud. If he blew up some part of the mountain, would anyone really care?

...Uncle would.

"No," Tauriel said, firmly. He looked up at her, and she arched an eyebrow. "No, Kíli. I will go and talk to your mother." She hesitated for a moment, but then unfolded her hand, so he saw the dark stone she held. "Your runestone. I have- I did not know how to return it. But this is yours, so."

"So," Kíli echoed.

"It is from Erebor, is it not?" She ran a finger over a soft gold vein right beneath the lettering. "The coloring- it is rather unique."

He held very still, and allowed the words to burble up like water from a spring, more solemn than previously. "Aye. It's from my father, actually. See, he was a miner, in Erebor- and when Smaug came he ran, but his pockets were filled with the stone he was mining, 'cause he just kept them there. And later, he died, and Mother would only ever take the Erebor stones out on- special days. She- when she heard we were going, she made that for me."

"Then how could you give it to me?"

She sounded angry, and a little shocked. Kíli looked up at her, and he thought, you don't know what you are to me.

"I knew you could keep it safe." Kíli paused, and then said, deliberately, "And I thought- if anything happened to me- and you needed to stay somewhere- Mother would see that, and she'd help."

Tauriel was silent. Frozen, like a statue. After a long moment, she turned to him and said, almost too soft to be heard, "If you ever try something like this again, I will gut you like a fish."

"Tauriel?" He asked slowly.

She moved, then, almost a blur: pale skin marred red by her hair, like blood on ice. Fast and ethereal and terrifyingly not-dwarf.

She had unsheathed her knife, and the cold expression in her eyes scoured something in his chest. Her eyes glittered a little in the firelight.

"I have seen my family slaughtered before my eyes," she said. "I have seen friends driven to madness, and I have ended their pain. I have seen my kinsmen and my king turn their back on me." She swallowed, hard. "I want- I wanted to- I wanted to be free, for once. But you've already taken that, haven't you?"

Kíli didn't dare move a muscle.

"If you ever give me a token of your death," Tauriel said, lifting reddened eyes, "I will ensure you die in the most painful way I know. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he whispered.

The moment spiralled on, but then Tauriel turned away sharply and swore under her breath, before rising to her feet.

"I'll cancel your meeting with Mother, then," Kíli muttered, only for her to shake her head.

"No, I'll go," she said wearily. "But do not think this conversation finished, Morwinyon. Not tonight, I do not think; but tomorrow. We shall speak of this later."

…

Tauriel was numb. She could feel her heart thudding in her chest, but it did not seem to translate. She was not shaking, though she thought she should be; it all just ached.

Mostly, she wished to leave Erebor and head for the nearest oaken trees, breathe in the cool air, stare up at the stars and beg them for the peace she'd fought for so many years. How many times had she heard it?

Her love is poisoned. Captain of the Guard in a forest set aflame with darkness, family killed, who bears daggers to the throne room?

Her love is as a dagger to your heart.

And, in the quietest part of her mind: if you live, it shall be as you wished you had not.

But Kíli had said he did not believe such curses. Or as good as, in the damp earth of Thranduil's dungeons. He'd smiled at her, and she had smiled back, because dwarves were known to be hardy to curses, and even if he was not she could have survived his death.

"Araran fool," she hissed at herself, and then bit her tongue, when she saw the dwarf following her.

Of course- she had forgotten. She yet had a guard.

Back in her rooms, she dressed in a soft blue tunic and brushed her hair neatly. She still had only the three knives, and she was visiting Kíli's mother- she discarded the paired ones and slid the other knife into her boot, where it was hidden.

And then she stared at her face in the mirror.

Pale skin, with an aquiline nose and high cheekbones, stared back at her. Her lashes were thickened just slightly from the tears she hadn't allowed to fall; there were two red spots on her cheeks, likely from the same thing.

Tauriel was just so tired. All she wanted was the quiet to allow her to sleep. Where she didn't see Kíli dead, where she was too slow, not good enough- she hadn't been, all her life, to save those she loved, and now when she was, how dare her mind replay what hadn't happened? She just wanted to run hard, run fast, feel the fear in the back of her throat like a live, pulsing animal- she knew how to deal with that.

This quiet, slumbering terror dug into her soul with implacable steel.

"Ah, meldir, if only you could see me now."

Legolas would laugh, she thought, and did not know to call it bitter or wry. Legolas would laugh, and his eyes would soften, and he would not fear to place a hand on her shoulder. Starlight dancing over their heads, the air cold and thin-

"I miss you," said Tauriel, and felt the nameless surge of horror across her face, like a slap: now you've done it, screamed a voice that sounded like a young elf, see how they turn away in fear, in pity, in rage.

But she had faced that, had she not? Levelling bow at Thranduil, on a battlefield. And then, in the tents, as he proclaimed her etementa, banished.

Tauriel had seen her nightmare, and she had met it. There was nothing left inside her, only the love Kíli offered, and the steel in her spine.

(a girl sees her mother dead, blood on cloth once lit gold- she sees her father turn dark, curl in on himself-)

If you live, it shall be as you wished you had not, a monster promised, once upon a time.

Tauriel, fifteen and shaking, saw death in her father's eyes and swore, I shall never Fade.

She kept her promise.

Now, six centuries later, she felt sick with it. Because she had kept her word, but the monster had kept his. Some nights she felt so empty, Manwë help her, as if someone had cut out her heart and left only iron in its place.

And Kíli loved her.

It was what she returned to, every damn time. Kíli loved her. It beat in time to her pulse, and felt raw, forged in heat of battle and fear of death. He loved her, and she wondered if she had anything inside her to answer that.

I do not know. But I shall find out.

Eyes closed, half-reaching, she whispered, "Aran'Valinor, give me the strength to continue."

And then folded everything away, into herself, as she'd done for long years. Brushed water right under her lashes, so there was no clumping, and studied her expression until she was sure it could remain impassive.

An hour later, in the formal sitting room of Princess Dís, she was holding to that mask with both hands and a prayer, because there was no way anyone could be that insulting without meaning it, and she would not give anyone the privilege of seeing it crack. It helped that the low light tinted the room red, allowing her to flush without giving anything else away.

"So, I suppose one couldn't expect any better from elves, but it served us well until we arrived in the Goblin Mountains," Dís was saying. "Then it broke, of course. Became some chewtoy, I think." She wrinkled her nose. "Pity. I think that moss-king would have traded for it."

Tauriel inhaled through her teeth and said, in a voice that was sharper than she'd like, "If a true elvin-made sword broke, it was likely because the user was using it at an incorrect angle." Don't say it, don't say it, don't- "Certainly, they were made with someone a little bit taller in mind."

Oh, well. Diplomacy was out, and had been since Kíli's mother opened her mouth. Hopefully this wouldn't make her too angry.

"Certainly," Dís agreed amiably, smile like a shark. "Made for someone with arms like wet noodles."

"Or for someone who has finesse instead of brute strength," Tauriel said off-handedly, before going painfully still.

Dís, however, only arched an eyebrow. "You're a blunt one."

Tauriel felt her left hand tighten, and she forcibly relaxed it. "I've never been one for diplomacy," she said.

"No?" Dís steepled her fingers. "I thought all you elves were made for it."

"Most are… patient," Tauriel said slowly. "And so, can approach statecraft with an open mind. I- have never learned to be so subtle."

"Indeed. Then let us cut to the chase." Dís tipped her head to the side. Her voice turned grave. "My son is a trusting figure, Tauriel, and he loves deeply, without thought for himself." Her eyes looked straight at Tauriel, and she felt flayed open: like everything of her was laid out for Dís to see. "Fíli knows this. Thorin does, too, though he acts like he doesn't. And so, my question to you: what do you intend to do with Kíli?"

"I intend to find out whether or not we are compatible," Tauriel said evenly. Then added, with a touch of asperity, "As I've been telling everyone who has asked. Princess Dís- I have nothing else, right now. I am banished from my home, and I've no family. So I shall stay here, until we are certain one way or another, and then I shall act accordingly."

Dís' voice turned rhythmic, half-chanting, like a prayer or an old song. "What are words, to the steel-breasted? Naught but the stray wind." Her eyes held Tauriel's, old and dark and as bright as her son's.

"But even the stray wind may dislodge the path of a true-thrown weapon," Tauriel replied.

"My people do not trust those who have no allegiances," she said.

"'Cruel done in the name of good is yet evil,'" quoted Tauriel. "And even so: I do not ask for trust, and I never have." Abruptly, she felt exhausted- things moving too fast for comfort, and revelations too meaningful in so short a time left her numb, her thoughts in disarray and limbs trembling. "I've no wish to debate ethics, Princess Dís. We are separate races; we will always have our differences. If I, suddenly, had the approval of Thranduil tomorrow, you would not trust me anymore than you do now, and, indeed, I think you would trust me less.

"I have no wish to beg on bended knee for your trust, or your people's trust. I've saved your children- Kíli, twice over- and then, been banished for it." She straightened her shoulders. "Clearly, there is nothing more I can do to gain your confidence. So I shall keep to my vows, and if you do not trust that- there is nothing more I can do for it."

Dís stared for a long minute, before a smile stretched over her face. Strangely, it felt more real to Tauriel than anything else in the entire conversation.

"Very well," she said, and rose to her feet. "Lady Tauriel. Your vows have been heard. Now, let me say this- if you break these promises, I claim your head."

Tauriel was weary, and worn ragged with it, and she had never had a good idea of her own mortality at the best of times. Now- threatened by a dwarf who had spent the better part of an hour insulting everyone from her ancestors to herself- she only felt a dull sort of incredulity.

More to the point: she laughed.

"Is this some sort of a dwarven custom?" She asked, dry as dust. Dís frowned, and she explained: "Prince Fíli's already claimed my head, if I ever stop making his brother smile."

Dís' face went purple. From a coolly delivered threat to an incoherent fury in the space it took for Tauriel to breathe- it was startling. Tauriel blinked, and Dís hissed, "That is my right."

"Very well," she said bemusedly.

"I am his mother," she snarled.

Tauriel offered her an awkward smile, wordless.

Dís turned away, stalking over to a side room. She came back with a broadsword, and an expression that looked grimmer than if she were to go to war.

"You'll see yourself out, I hope," she said, and did not mean it as a question. "I must go speak to one of my sons, who is an idiot, and-" she started speaking in Khuzdul, then. Tauriel thought swearing might have been a better descriptor.

She left.

Tauriel looked out, over the cool stone room, lit in shades of red and yellow. For a moment, she allowed herself to tremble, finely, before forcing it down. Another ten minutes or so, and she could go to her rooms, or outside, or somewhere else-

Outside. Perhaps, if it wasn't cloudy, she could see the stars, and allow their gentle light to soothe her fëa for a few minutes. It was only just past dark, she knew- so the sky might be tainted with twilight colors yet, but it was a rare pleasure indeed for her to have the time to see the stars glitter into view, from dusk to midnight.

Heart already lighter, she left Dís' rooms.

…

Sifa was half-asleep in her quarters when she remembered that she'd left candles lit in the library.

For a long moment she considered just leaving it.

But- damn it all to hell- if she did, there was a chance something would tip over, and even if nothing actually burned, the smoke damage to such old paper would surely render it illegible. Sifa loathed those who allowed such to happen to precious information.

She threw on a loose overcoat, and slipped outside.

A few minutes later, she became aware of a faint sound, like a muffled crash- she frowned, and followed it.

Only to turn the corner to see a guard, crumpled on the stone.

"What in the world-," she cut herself off, and knelt, pressing a finger to the guard's neck- but there was no pulse. "Mahal have mercy," she breathed.

No blood, either, so his neck was broken. It must have been done very quickly, and quietly, for she recognized the guardsman and knew him to be competent. If he suspected something, this wouldn't have been so easy a job.

A sound from further down the hall alerted her to the fact that there might not have been only one target. Heart pounding, she drew the dagger she always kept sheathed at her waist and ignored how paltry it felt- undid her loose overcoat and laid it gently over the guard; followed the sounds.

Inside, she saw a dwarf shielding from a taller, leaner figure.

There was only one person who could be that inside Erebor's walls.

Sifa swallowed, hard. She could turn away, run, ask for guards; but there was something strange in the tableau, some detail that she couldn't make out-

She spoke.

"What is going on here?" Voice clear, sharp, steady; pitched to cut away battle-haze.

Both dwarf and elf froze, but then Sifa saw the way the elf stumbled back, and the dwarf- followed. Only a moment, nothing more; but enough for her to make out, enough for her to see the relief in the elf's eyes and tension in the dwarf's back, enough for her to see the knife in the dwarf's hands, gleaming red.

The dwarf stepped back, and half-turned to her, so he was poised to see both Sifa and the elf.

"She attacked me," he said flatly.

Sifa breathed in and out, slow and cool. The elf was shaking, moving backwards, hand scrabbling against the wall. There would be no help coming from that sight.

"There's a dead guard in the hallway," she said. Careful, careful- he wore two bone-beads in his beard, and they were the yellow-brown of Orc bones. He was a warrior, and his blood was up- he was more dangerous than she could hope to be on her best day.

"Yes," said the dwarf roughly. "She killed him."

"But- why?" Sifa asked, widening her eyes. "She was announced to the King Under the Mountain, wasn't she? She's the khi'nututredel, I don't understand-"

As she spoke, she extended her foot back, precisely a half-length; with the dagger in her hand, she twitched it to every sconce in the room.

"Enough," snarled the dwarf, stepping away from Sifa towards the elf. "If you will not help, I will avenge my brother myself."

"Wait," Sifa said, and he turned around, and she felt the cold heat of electricity tingle up from her feet to her scalp.

I want this, she thought, and pulled, and for a moment there was a storm sitting inside of her lungs.

"Zagr," she said, and every lit lamp in the room flared brighter than the sun.

It was brief, but long enough: Sifa, ready, leapt forward and slammed her fist into his throat as he yelled in sudden pain, and while he was still choking she shoved her open palm up, into his nose.

He was still trained, however, and strong. Before she could do much more, he had a hand around her throat, and the dagger pressing close, held back only by her own arm. Sifa bit her tongue, and spat blood up into his face; it did not do much to silence him.

A maelstrom of rage ballooned inside her, like so much hot air.

I have not travelled the length of Arda to die here, she thought furiously.

"Bitch," he panted.

She clawed her left hand- the hand not keeping his dagger from slicing into her chest- and dragged it down the dirt, forming three long furrows. Then she sent up the fastest prayer she had to Mahal and released her right hand, instead drawing it down his face as quickly as she could.

His dagger slid across her chest in a shallow cut as he suddenly, forcibly, slept.

Sifa let him fall and wished, viciously, that he hit his head hard. Then she stumbled to the side and took long, deep breaths, and did not think about Kubis' rage, or those two weeks in which she hid across a mountain built to keep people from hiding, or the feel of a knife to the throat and a hoarse whisper-

Wait a minute.

The dizzy edge to her thoughts, the haze at the periphery of her vision, her heart pounding in sudden desperation- Sifa knew these symptoms. Nausea curdled in her gut as she stumbled over to the fallen dwarf, and scrabbled for his knife.

It was coated in a pale pinkish-blue substance.

Damn it all to Morgoth's lair.

Sifa glanced around, and then back to the elf, who had gone even stiller, head tipping back slightly. Closer inspection revealed that the assassin had slashed at the insides of her elbows, likely at the veins.

Smart dwarf- make her own blood carry it to the heart, make her slow, make her stumble- and then you can cut her head off.

There was an easy enough solution to being cut with the gumdrop plant: tea made from firemoss leaves.

She had firemoss in her quarters. The question was how to get there.

After a moment, she made her decision- she bore the elf on her shoulders, and hunched over, hurried back to her rooms. There, she laid her out on one of the low couches and made the tea; by then, her vision was wavering.

The fumes brought her back a few minutes later, and Sifa was glad for it- though she had a terrible headache, the pain was enough to hone her thoughts, and she'd need her wits about her to get out of this mess. But she could have skipped the actual drinking of the tea: firemoss was bitter, and no amount of sugar could affect that distinctive flavor.

She poured a little bit of tea down the elf's throat, massaging it until she swallowed, and then headed out to the assassin and guard. The assassin she brought back to her quarters, where she tied him up with torn-out linen strips, in the strong braided fashion that Ered Luin weavers favored. The guard she placed on a low-lying table in a nearby room, and covered him with a black weave she'd found in her rooms.

Then she sat down at her study table, and began making notes on what she had to do.

...

Tauriel awoke with a throbbing head and a pain across her elbows, and fear leaping in her throat like a live animal.

She awoke sharply, without a distinctive flinch, and did not hiss at the sudden pain; instead, she reached for her dagger- it was not there, however, and she let the fear claw at her insides for a moment longer before forcing it all down. Terror would not help here, but if she addressed things calmly, perhaps she could survive.

A look around revealed that she was laid out on a couch too small for her body, and her calves hung off the edge; a rough blanket was unfolded over her, and on the side table next to her a cup of something that truly smelled horrid rested.

Tauriel shifted, gingerly testing muscles and weight. Her head still ached, but far less than even a few moments before, and when she looked down she saw that her elbows had been bandaged neatly, if hastily.

However, when she got up- the world spun like a water-wheel, and she had no choice but to grasp the back of the couch lest she fall over like a newborn colt.

A moment later the world resolved into proper shapes: the dwarf who'd attempted to kill her last night was bound tightly and shoved in what must have been a perfectly uncomfortable position, which Tauriel was surprisingly agreeable to- and another dwarf was seated at a desk and writing.

"What-" she winced at the scrape to her voice, "-happened?"

The dwarf turned around, and Tauriel realized that it wasn't a he but rather a she; the severely cut braids around her beard revealed a more delicate set of features than Kíli, and the clothes she wore were clearly feminine, even if the body was more androgynous than expected.

Though Tauriel had seen Dis- she really shouldn't have been surprised.

"You were attacked," the dame told Tauriel, bluntly. "I don't suppose you remember overmuch?"

"No," said Tauriel.

She nodded, and waved her back to the couch, where she followed her and sat, on a nearby armchair. "The guard you had was taken care of first, from what I could infer, and then he moved onto you. I suppose you had realized something was the issue and attempted to hold him off, for you'd moved some distance away by the time I arrived."

"I… was trying to run," Tauriel recalled, slowly. "But he followed, and seemed to know precisely where I'd gone."

"Stone-sense," she said. "It is something all dwarves have, though miners more than most." Abruptly, she looked startled; her lips twisted into wry amusement before she said, "Apologies, but we haven't been introduced. My name is Sifa, daughter of Glifa and last Heir to Ferya."

"Tauriel," she replied, with a perfunctory nod. "Daughter of Tirnel and Randaer."

Sifa bowed her head in acknowledgement. "Well met, then, Lady Tauriel. Now. There is much we must speak of, and little enough time; it is not yet dawn, of course, and guards don't often patrol the Outer Wings, so the damage done to the hallway won't have been noticed yet." She winced, a little. "And your guard is still there."

"Ah," Tauriel said quietly. "I- wondered." When Sifa did not start to remonstrate her for daring to care for a dwarf, she relaxed a fraction. "So, is he-"

"He is dead," said Sifa, still with that peculiar dwarf bluntness; another might have tried to soften the words, might have couched it a little differently, but these people seemed to think that there was comfort in the bare truth. "He did not suffer- his neck was broken before he was aware of the danger, I believe. And he does not have any children, or a spouse- his braids said he'd devoted himself to his craft." She sighed. "He will be buried with honor."

"Thank you." Tauriel sought for something to say, something to offer-

"Drink the tea," Sifa ordered.

She looked at her. "What tea?"

She inclined her head to the cup that stank worse than a spider corpse left to fester for weeks.

"That is not tea," said Tauriel.

"It is made from steeping firemoss leaves," said Sifa, sounding amused. "The assassin- when he cut you, the dagger was coated in gumdrop milk. It causes dizziness, blindness, vertigo; let it affect you long enough, and it will make you go unconscious. It's also a shrub, and it grows in great number on the slopes of both Ered Luin and Erebor, so it's easy to extract and use which is why the assassin likely used it-" She pursed her lips ruefully. "And, rather beside the point. Lady Tauriel, the only known cure for poisoning via gumdrop milk is firemoss tea. I assure you it tastes better than it smells."

Tauriel took the cup, and tried not to gag as she brought it close. She sipped it, and heard Sifa say, in a voice almost too low to be heard, "But only slightly."

A moment later, the taste flooded over her tongue: acrid, bitter, with a sickly-sweet edge. She glared mutely at Sifa and swallowed, and then couldn't repress the shudder as it worked its way down her throat.

"That was horrible," she bit out, and stopped. Because the heat-haze surrounding the edges of her vision had faded as if they'd never been, and the woolly effect on her head had gone as well.

Sifa arched a knowing eyebrow, and rose to her feet.

"Drink the tea," she repeated. Then, retrieving a sheaf of papers: "And tell me about your guards. When do they change rotation?"

"Noon," Tauriel said promptly.

"More time yet," Sifa muttered. "Very well. So. We'll have to find a way to get either Fíli or Kíli here, as soon as possible, and we've a little over seven hours to do so."

"Why can't we just present the assassin to the King? Surely he will find out, anyhow, and we can just get it over with."

Sifa paused. "It is a little more complicated than that."

Tauriel waited, but no; Sifa did not seem inclined to elaborate.

"How so?"

"A bit too long an explanation for right now, I'm afraid," she said, and sounded truly regretful, enough to let Tauriel put aside her wariness for the moment. "We shall have to speak to the Princes before anything else. And- we do not know who else is a part of this plot, so we shall have to continue without knowledge of whom to trust beyond the royal family."

Tauriel frowned into her cup as a thought occurred to her. "What, precisely, is your relation to the royal family?"

Sifa, scribbling something into the margins of a sheet of paper, looked up at her, and said, wryly, "That is a longer story than the entirety of the Lay of Thorin Oakenshield and his Company, and that song is by far one of our race's longer. Rest assured, I do not wish any of them dead, or overthrown."

"Am I to simply take your word for it?" Tauriel demanded.

"I see the resemblance," Sifa told her, "between you and Kíli. Heaven knows you must have nothing else in common, but that protectiveness- and, I think, your ability to find danger even as everyone else is safe." Her mien softened a little, and she reached forwards, as if to touch her knee, before retreating. "I will not tell you everything, Lady Tauriel, for there is more to my relation to Fíli than can be told in a single evening; and, indeed, it is not your business whatsoever. But I've known both of them, and the Princess Dis, since I was too young to remember. So- I wish to keep them safe, and the only way for such is to tell them what has happened."

Tauriel studied Sifa, closely. Then, she asked, mildly, "Only your relation to Prince Fíli?"

Sifa froze, and her eyes widened the tiniest fraction.

Tauriel nodded, satisfied.

"Please," she said, "call me Tauriel. Now: how do you propose to approach them?"

…

Fíli was still asleep in his bed when he was poked in the side.

He jerked upright, but before he could yell a hand was slapped over his mouth. A moment later it retracted, and he reached for the knife he kept in the side of his bed.

"Fíli," said a voice he knew all too well, "put the damned dagger down."

"Sifa?" He asked groggily.

The image of Sifa appeared, then, slowly: she was lit from behind in the dying embers of the fireplace, and so her face was still shadowed; but there was enough ambient light for him to see her.

"I can't stay for long," she said, speaking very low and very fast. "Do you remember what I said, of your Uncle not having an army? It appears that some have decided it does not matter, for there are easier ways to topple a kingdom than to lay siege to it. Can you leave these rooms without others knowing?"

"...what?" Fíli asked slowly.

"Fíli," said Sifa, and he saw the way she gripped something in her hands, knuckles gleaming white. "I. Do not. Have. Time. We have to act. You are in danger. So. Can you leave these rooms?"

He rubbed at his eyes. "Yes," he said. "There's a second passage into- it doesn't matter. Nobody knows about it."

"Good," she murmured. "I'm a runner, according to the guards, it's how I got in. Ignore the page I've left behind; it's useless information for you. Just leave your rooms, and keep your head down, and go to the polished-rocks storeroom in the Outer Wing, as soon as you can." Sifa paused, and he stared at her; she reached out and brushed his jaw, lightly, before retreating. "Will you be missed?"

"...no," Fíli said slowly. "Not for another four hours."

"Good. Then get ready. And take your time, coming to the storeroom- make sure there's nobody following you." Sifa stepped back. "Where's Kíli?"

He grimaced. "Something about horses in Laketo- Dale. He left last night."

"When will he be back?"

"Today," Fíli said.

Sifa nodded, once, and then pulled a hat on. With the bright blue tunic and characteristic hat of runners across Erebor, there was nothing distinctive in her appearance.

"You remember where to go?"

He nodded. Sifa's face looked pinched tight, tense with something that spoke of true fear- which lit a lamp in his own gut- but before he could ask exactly what happened, she left.

As Fíli walked down the hallway she'd directed him to, he felt tense and unhappy. The halls echoed as they'd done when Smaug still lived, and the stone walls took up the sound so it sounded like a thousand timorous ghosts curdling through the air.

The rooms Sifa had chosen were storerooms that held the dross of mining. With so few dwarves in Erebor, they were mostly abandoned. In a slightly-smaller one such as this, it was likely nobody even remembered it existed.

Sifa was on her knees in the room, writing on a piece of paper, head bent. Beside her, tall and grim, stood Tauriel.

Fíli stopped in his tracks. "Sifa," he said warily.

Sifa looked up, and some tension broke away from her face, though the rest of her still looked stiff.

"Fíli," she acknowledged, and waved him over to the ring of chairs.

"Lady Tauriel," he murmured as he passed her.

She bowed her head, and he was going to ask why she was here, how she was here- but Sifa laced her fingers together, and said, "Last night, Lady Tauriel was attacked."

"What?" Fíli couldn't process, for a moment, and then he felt white-hot pinpricks behind his chest that spoke of fear. She stood right there, and he could not see any injuries on her, but she was still his brother's One and- "When? How?"

"I went outside the mountain after speaking to your mother," Tauriel said calmly, but he thought he saw a tremor in her hands. "It was late evening when I went outside, and well past midnight when I returned. On our way back, the guard assigned to me was attacked, and then I was, as well." She shot a look at Sifa, who was gripping one of the stone pieces like she wished to break it. "Had Lady Sifa not arrived when she did, I would certainly be dead."

"Gumdrop milk," Sifa said succinctly. "She's fine, now, and so am I; but he was- is- dangerous."

"Is he dead?" Fíli asked.

Sifa shook her head. "I- subdued him."

"Good job," he said, surprised, and Sifa rolled her eyes.

"Yes, yes, it's all very startling," she said impatiently, and turned to the pages she held once more, picking out a few and shoving them at him. "But more importantly, there's something going on here, and it isn't just one dwarf with a grudge against elves. There's something deeper here, Fíli- I checked up on clan records, and he has only two family members stated, one from Ered Luin and the other from the Iron Hills, and moreover, there's nothing high-ranking about either."

"Clan records don't say everything."

"But they do give criminal records," she shot back.

Fíli exhaled. "Kíli's coming back tonight-"

"Coordinated as to when he was not in Erebor," Tauriel said lowly.

"-and we can talk more about this then." He tugged on his beard. "Though that's a good point."

"Fine," Sifa said briskly. "But we still need to talk about the killed guard, and what to do with the assassin, and-"

"The guard was killed?"

"Yes," Tauriel and Sifa said together. Then, Sifa continued, "He was killed quickly: broken neck. No family on his end, either- just a few distant clan members in Ered Luin."

Fíli's jaw clenched tightly. "It's different if someone's been killed," he said.

"I know," said Sifa.

"I want to see where it happened," he said, and didn't wait for her nod.

He heard her say something to Tauriel, who followed them quietly; apparently there were dirt tunnels under the stone ones that he'd come through, and these didn't echo at all. Sifa led him to a dark room that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and then she stepped back, allowing him to see what she'd seen.

There wasn't much he could identify that she hadn't said already.

The guard clearly hadn't been aware- the angle was of a chokehold from the back and a swift wrench; before he'd realized anything was wrong, he'd been killed.

"Mahal guide you," Fíli said quietly, placing a hand on the guard's beard. "May his Halls be bright and laden with food."

"May you find peace there that you have not known in Endoré," said Tauriel, softly. Fíli looked up at her, sharply, and she said, "He returned home, after centuries, and was not given peace. He was killed in the name of power." Her hands spasmed for a moment, before forcibly stilling. "I am many things, Prince Fíli, but before everything else I've been a protector. This dwarf died for me- he sacrificed himself for me. I will bring those who killed him to justice, or I will die trying."

Fíli looked between her and Sifa, who was looking carefully impassive. "Can you hold to that?"

Tauriel flushed angrily. "Do you question my honor? I hold to it as I do all my other vows!"

"And how do you hold those?" Sifa asked, head tilted at such a precise angle- Fíli knew, suddenly, that she was both irritated and interested with the conversation.

"I am beholden to Manwë," said Tauriel quizzically. "As are all elves who swear such vows." Her eyes glittered a pale green. "I take it it isn't the same for dwarves?"

Fíli sighed. "No. To us, the only vows worth anything are those sworn by warriors- oathed, liegesworn warriors. For if they do not hold to them, one can speak to their lord. Why should anyone trust the words of anyone who isn't beholden to another?"

"In the eyes of elves, those who break such vows are unworthy of the gift of immortality; very likely, they will not be allowed to enter Valinor, when the ships leave. I believed dwarves swore oaths in such a manner, as well: only, on Aulë, and not Manwë."

Sifa relaxed a fraction. "What use have we for the Vala, in our daily lives? Mahal may, indeed, watch us; but surely there are too many for him to watch over us all. So we say he sees the lords, and theirs is the only honor beholden to him."

Fíli said, quietly, "And I am one such lord." Dismissed the entire topic, after Tauriel nodded, and addressed Sifa. "We cannot tell Uncle."

"No," Sifa said. "He is bound by duty." She looked weary for a moment, exhausted and worn down with it. "If we tell him, he will send you-" she spoke to Tauriel, who looked startled, "-away, for he has no choice to keep someone proven to turn kin against one another. And if you go, Kíli will follow."

Tauriel didn't say anything.

"Then I'll have to act, won't I?" Fíli asked. "As crown prince. It's my duty."

"What are you talking about?" Tauriel asked carefully.

"Kíli cannot leave," Fíli replied. "If he does- the royal family is in trouble, as is. We can't afford to allow one of our number to just disappear."

"Dwarves see strength in numbers," Sifa interjected.

"Yes," he acknowledged. "We do. If Kíli goes away, people will see him as unsure of Uncle's claim on the throne, or as there being a fight between Uncle and him. So. He can't."

"It appears the line of Durin is yet beholden to you," Sifa said wryly. Fíli felt a spurt of irritation, but she only arched an eyebrow in response. "Fíli will never get up the humility to actually say it, and we don't have time to waste, so here it is-"

"Sifa!"

"-he wishes you to stay, in Erebor, until such a time as there is stability." Sifa finished with a flourish, smiling at Tauriel, and then turned to Fíli. "Don't be an idiot. As long as you have someone who's able and willing to talk on your behalf, why would you let it pass? " She didn't wait for him to sputter up a response- Fíli felt quite beyond words, at the moment- and continued, in a topic shift that was nowhere near subtle: "There is one thing that's strange, however."

"What is that?" Tauriel asked, arching an eyebrow.

Sifa laced her hands together. "Why now? Why act now, when there's still so much uncertainty? Wait a few weeks, a few months- let people finally start to see Thorin Oakenshield as the only king, and then attack. Then, people are actually worried, because they trust him. They see him as their king, not just a king." She looked frustrated for a moment, before meeting his eyes. "It's strange, isn't it, Fíli?"

He winced at her accusatory look.

"Not… really," he offered weakly. Sifa looked unimpressed.

He withstood it for a full thirty seconds before giving in: "Not if you know that there's to be a diplomatic meeting in a month's time."

Tauriel went still. "A diplomatic meeting- between who?"

"Dale," Fíli said unwillingly. "Mirkwood. It's taking place here."

Sifa had turned a shade that bordered on white- no easy feat with her dark coloring. The look she levelled at him could have- should have- turned his knees to jelly.

"Why does nobody else know?"

"I can't tell you," Fíli began, and Sifa's face turned cold, eyes hard as flint.

"If you don't," she said, low and sharp as a dagger in the dark, "we cannot stop the next people to do this. Innocent dwarves will die, and their blood will be on your hands."

"They want it kept secret for reasons, Sifa," Fíli said heatedly.

Sifa suddenly slapped her hand against the table, hard enough to make a crack appear in it.

"Reasons?" She snarled. "Reasons? We can't tell anyone what's happening. I'm the only one here with any knowledge of politics, Mahal knows you never paid attention to Balin's lectures- there is nobody else who can tell you what will happen! We need information. I know you have it. There are people out there who are willing to kill dwarves, and I need to know why, I need to know how, I need to know when and where and what! And I cannot do that if you do not speak!"

It was the loudest he'd ever seen her. Not even him leaving for Erebor had driven her to shout. But now she stood in front of him, flushed and furious, color high in her cheeks and side-beard quivering.

"Uncle's going to declare his courtship to Bilbo in a week's time," Fíli said finally, softly. "And during the meeting, he's going to declare marriage. I do not know why, for sure, that he's not spoken of the meeting otherwise- only that it took this long for him to even reconcile to the idea."

"If someone wishes to wreck relations, that would be an ideal time," Tauriel said neutrally.

Sifa looked at him, steadily. The flush faded from her cheeks, but there was still irritation along the corners of her eyes. "Perhaps," she said, eyes still hard. Then she flicked a finger across her wrist: sorry.

Fíli sketched a sign in Iglishmêk, quickly: forgiven.

"Do you wish to see the assassin?" She asked.

"Yes," murmured Fíli. "Let's."

The assassin was in her quarters, and he struggled not to remember his last memory of them: Sifa, gilded in lamplight, looking like she held a broken thing in her hands. When he looked at her, though, she was shuffling through some papers on her desk while mumbling something under her breath; she did not seem to care much for what they saw.

"He is still asleep?" Tauriel asked, stepping forwards and brushing a hand over the assassin's forehead, as if searching for what was wrong. She shot a look at Sifa. "What did you do to him?"

Sifa looked up, and bit her lip. Her eyes flicked between the two of them for a moment before she deflated.

"It's a long story," she said, and when Fíli snorted, she glared. "It is, Fíli."

"You saying we don't have time?"

She traced something on the table. "No," she said reluctantly. "Do you know what Iglishmêk is?" She asked Tauriel.

Tauriel frowned. "A- sign language, according to Kíli. Dwarven sign language."

"Leave it to him to reduce it to that," Sifa said wryly. "It is, I suppose, but there is far more to it. Three dialects, actually."

"Three?" Fíli asked.

"Yes, three," Sifa said. "Miner's, battle, and ritual. Miner's Iglishmêk is geared around mining- yes, Fíli, I know how stupid that sounds-" she rolled her eyes, "-meaning that there's a lot more gesturing with hands, and facial features. Battle Iglishmêk is a little bit more facially dependent, because hands aren't always free in battle. And then there's ritual Iglishmêk."

Fíli made a twisting motion with his shoulders. "What, like that?" He grinned at her, and waved his hands above his head.

Sifa's lips thinned and she turned away, but he saw the smile curling around her lips.

"Ritual Iglishmêk is used in our dances." Sifa arched an eyebrow at him. "Not tavern jigs, Fíli, as much as it might be interesting to see robed mages jumping on tables- I'm talking about the formal court dances." She paused for a moment. "Though these aren't as-"

"Ostentatious?" Fíli asked dryly.

"-I didn't think you knew such high vocabulary," she replied. "And yes, I suppose. The dances use large, sweeping movements. But the actual rituals- to get what you need, you must do the correct sign in Iglishmêk, and want whatever it is, very badly; the magic pulls at you, once you do it, and you just- let it out." At their blank faces, she grimaced. "Not the best explanation, perhaps, but the only one I have."

Tauriel was still kneeling beside the assassin. "It takes much training for any elf to be blessed enough to have such- energy. The Lady of Light- Galadriel, of Lórien- does not use her energy for anything less than the most dangerous tasks. Even those trained for thousands of years, if not prepared, cannot do as you did."

"I know not where elves get their power, but we dwarves get it from the stone," said Sifa. Quoted, voice turning rhythmic: "'From the stone you have come, and to the stone you will return.' Our lives are lived under stone, and under mountain, and this gives power to the mountain. I could not have done anything were we outside Erebor. But within, there is a- magic, you could call it- in the walls, that those who are educated can use."

"Show me," Fíli said.

Sifa turned to him. "What do you want to see?" She asked.

"You put him to sleep, didn't you?" Fíli asked archly. "Can you wake him?"

It was a challenge, and Sifa knew it: her eyes glittered, like sunlight flashing off granite- dark, almost black, until the correct angle was hit and ribbons of green and gold and silver were revealed.

"Step back," she said, and he did; Tauriel tested the dwarf's bonds and then followed. She had loosed a knife, he saw, and gripped it grimly.

Sifa closed her eyes for a moment. She flicked her fingers in a pattern, twice, too fast for him to follow, and then placed a hand right above the dwarf's chin, three fingers clawed, and dragged it up. At the same time, she said, "Ibkin."

The dwarf woke at once, gasping.

Tauriel stepped forward in one smooth motion, knife pressing into the soft skin under his chin.

The dwarf went still.

"Where am I?" He asked, blinking wildly. His hands yanked at the bindings, testing them, and when he felt their firmness he went limp. "What-" Then he caught sight of Sifa, and memory flooded back onto his face: his eyes narrowed, lips twisting. "You," he snarled, teeth flecked yellow. "How dare you."

"Me," Sifa said, remarkably calm for someone with knuckles that white.

"She killed her guard," he said, jerking his chin at Tauriel before freezing as the knife pressed deeper; he went on, however, with nary a hitch in his voice. "So all of you are traitors to the crown. I ought to have slit your throat while I had the chance."

"Give me one reason not to gut you," Tauriel breathed, the handle gleaming in the firelight.

"You don't want information?" He asked. "Because dead dwarves don't speak."

Fíli stepped forward and gripped Tauriel's shoulder, when she went to speak. The dwarf looked up at him, and recognition stole over his face like a fearful fog.

"Redêl," he whispered.

"Aye," Fíli said. "Do you see now? There are no traitors in this room that aren't you. And we've no need for information from the likes of you- information we've no way of confirming."

"Do you think I fear her?" The dwarf hissed, hands clenching into fists.

"You should," Fíli told him. "Your fate lies in her hands. She has proven worthy of accepting werguild." Then he turned to Tauriel and said, "You may indeed gut him, but blooded warriors rarely fear such pain. If he is killed he will simply enjoy Mahal's halls all the faster. No, my Lady: do not kill him, but rather allow him to see what he might have done to you, had he succeeded in driving you out.

"Let him feel the weight of abandonment," Fíli continued, "and the taste of loss. Let him try to arrive at dwarven homes and be turned away, let him never be allowed to see kin again."

Tauriel was still for a long moment, and then she rose, unfolding her limbs gracefully. "Death is not enough," she said coldly. "This- might be. Very well, Prince Fíli: I shall do as you bid. How does one achieve such a thing?"

"Take his beard," he said.

The dwarf looked up at him, shocked. Then the surprise seemed to disappear, all of a sudden; he struggled away from Tauriel and shouted wordlessly for a long moment.

After that, he spat, in rolling, gravelly Khuzdul: "So Durin's line is as spineless as they say. Tell me, does your Uncle truly enjoy the attentions of a halfling? An elf, a halfling, a traitorous worm- tell me what is next, for you-"

Sifa struck him. Or maybe she didn't; Fíli wasn't sure. He only saw the surprise across the dwarf's face as his mouth shut- he'd been so concentrated on not beheading him that he hadn't even seen her move.

"If you're going to do it, then do it quickly," she snapped. "He's silenced: there will no longer be a sound coming from his throat. We've other things to do if we're to conceal this disappearance." Her eyes caught Fíli's, and then she slipped away to another room.

"Very well," Fíli said, and moved so he was behind the dwarf, gripping his skull.

Tauriel, too, nodded; she knelt, once more, and began cutting through his beard.

It was quick work, in the end, and clean. Once he was fully shaved, Fíli took his signet ring and placed it in flame until it burned white-hot. He passed it to Tauriel, who looked at it, and then him, and then moved so fast she blurred; in a flash, the dwarf was branded on the side of his neck.

He screamed soundlessly.

A moment later, Sifa returned, holding a piece of paper carefully. She handed it to Fíli, and looked disdainfully at the dwarf.

"Give him gumdrop milk," she said. "Tauriel and I will go dump him outside after you leave."

Tauriel slashed the insides of his elbows with the knife that had cut her earlier that morning. She handled it carelessly, grimacing, and when it was over she tossed it into the fireplace.

"I've no desire to keep such a thing," she said, seeing Sifa's arched eyebrow.

Sifa shrugged and said, "Fine. I'll be back in a few minutes; it will take that long for the gumdrop milk to take effect, anyhow." Tauriel nodded, and then Sifa gestured for Fíli to follow her out of the room.

She stopped in the hallway out of her rooms, and turned towards Fíli.

"Make sure it's in his paperwork, but he doesn't read it," she said quietly, nodding to the paper. "We cannot afford missteps now, so early in this."

"And what is this?" He asked.

"A game," Sifa replied. "A chess game." She looked exhausted, and then sardonic; like she'd thought of a joke but was too tired to laugh. "I'm being overly dramatic today," she said.

Fíli leaned back, shoulder fitting against the smooth stone wall, and laughed. He'd missed this, between them, in the past weeks and even more on the quest- Sifa's tendency for irreverence, her ability to drag him back from self-pitying spirals, and just laughing with someone who did not treat him with the stifling respect due a prince. Kíli could make him laugh- did make him laugh, oftentimes more than Sifa ever did- but there was something in her independence that soothed him in a way entirely unique.

"You've earned the right," he said.

Sifa snorted. "You mean I've stolen it from you?" Her eyes widened, and then she began, almost gleefully, "'The Line of Durin's got a monopoly on brooding majestically like over-grown pathetically-'"

"Is that a quote?" Fíli yelped.

"It's all over the kitchens and mines," Sifa said, and it was absolutely gleeful, this time. "I think it's the 'Ur brothers who're the ones who wrote the damn thing, but it took off. Everyone's heard it by now. The Lay of Thorin Oakenshield and his Company. Mahal, it's a mouthful."

"Ha," Fíli said weakly.

Her face softened the tiniest fraction. "Yes. Well." She paused, and then shrugged almost fatalistically. "I don't mean to push," she said, tone far graver than before, "but have you- made a choice?"

"On what?"

Sifa looked at him, unimpressed, and he wilted.

"No," he said. "I- I need some more time. The rest of my life is a- long time."

"And neither of us are Kíli, to jump in such a relationship," Sifa said dryly. Fíli took it for what it was: acceptance of his request, and shift of topic, simultaneously.

"He's an idiot," he agreed, and when she laughed he joined her. After a long moment, he knocked his fist into the wall and said, "I- have to go."

Sifa tipped her head to the side. "Yes," she said amusedly. "You do." The levity faded from her face suddenly. "Fíli- don't tell Kíli what happened in public. Make sure you've got time, as well. In fact, better if Tauriel tells him herself."

"I'm not the idiot," Fíli said, insulted. "Everything'll be fine, Sifa. No need to worry."

"If you're sure," Sifa said, and stepped forward, so she could have reached out and touched his face if she so wished.

Only now, so close, did he realize that Sifa had kept a careful foot between them the entire morning. She'd been subtle enough that he hadn't even noticed it.

"Be careful," she said softly, and pressed a hand to the side of his neck, where he knew there was a scar from falling down a hillside, one that hadn't been there when he stood before her in Ered Luin. "And come back." Her eyes looked over-large in the dim light. "I didn't tell you that when you left, and it's all I dreamt of, for months. The last words I had for you- nothing of kindness, only anger."

"You said you wouldn't mourn me," Fíli remembered.

Sifa exhaled. "I wouldn't have. It wasn't my place." She pressed closer, hand so tight against his neck he thought he could feel her pulse in her fingers, slow and hard like dragonfire-lit-cauldrons. "But I would have missed you," she confessed, as if it was a great secret.

Fíli remembered the desolate look on her face when he stood to leave her rooms, and the stiff way she bowed to his mother upon reaching Erebor, and the carefully hidden gratitude when he'd spoken to her in the aftermath of her father's banishment. For more than three decades Sifa had pruned herself into steel and fire and stone- she'd curled in on herself and fought off an entire mountain that hated her very blood.

Perhaps it wasn't so much a stretch that she kept feelings secret: indeed, how long had she been alone?

"I did miss you," Fíli said quietly. "In Rivendell, and then Mirkwood, and then Laketown, and then Erebor. The quest would have been a better place had you been there."

"I'd not have the patience," Sifa said, but she relaxed, and the heavy emotion in her eyes lightened. A little sharper, she warned, "We know not what this danger is. So keep your eyes wary and ears listening, Fíli: it will be a poor fate indeed, were the redêl to disappear from the halls he's yet to rule."

Fíli nodded, and for just a breath he pressed his forehead to Sifa's, close enough to feel her damp exhale on his cheeks. Then he stepped away, and said, "I do have to go," with what was sure to be an idiotic look on his face.

"Go," Sifa said, with a smile.

Fíli went.

…

"Fíli said there was something you needed to tell me," Kíli said.

Tauriel decidedly did not shift uneasily.

"I spoke to Princess Dís," she said. "She is… very blunt."

"Like a hundred-year old axe," Kíli agreed, with a smile that looked like it bared more teeth than entirely necessary.

Tauriel nodded, calmly. "Afterwards, I needed some air. So I went outside. And it was a bit late when I returned." She'd moved herself so she was between Kíli and the door, and he was boxed between a desk and the wall. "Kíli," she said, gentle as she knew how, "I was attacked."

There was a moment, when she thought he hadn't heard. Then his face hardened until she could scarcely imagine it was the same, fun-loving dwarf she'd spoken to just a few days previous.

"When?" He asked.

"Last night." Tauriel hesitated, then sat down, and gestured for him to follow. He refused with a jerk of his chin that trembled slightly; it was the only sign of how close he was to losing control that she could see. "I am fine. However, he killed the guard that Thorin had placed on me." Kíli went even whiter at that, but she did not stop. "Lady Sifa saved me."

"Sifa?" Kíli asked, looking startled. "The same-"

"-the one who has a thing with your brother," Tauriel said.

That, at least, seemed to break the tension a little. Some measure of color appeared on his cheeks.

"Were you- injured?" He asked haltingly. "I mean- what did he want?"

"We do not know," she said. "Kíli, sit down. Please. I am fine; the dwarf has been taken care of. I'll tell you what happened, but-"

He looked at her steadily, and she saw the same cool fury in his eyes that she had seen in his mother's. Tauriel felt just as laid bare under his gaze as she had under Dis'.

"Give me one reason not to walk out of Erebor, right now," he said, low and fierce. It tangled in her gut like thorned vines. "Give me one reason not to walk out with you. How dare anyone think that they can do such a thing? You are the khi'nututredel and that means something. Tell me, Tauriel, why should I not walk out?"

Tauriel looked at him, and she cursed her heavy tongue, not for the last time. She was not a diplomat at the best of times- she could not find the words to say no, stay, I have a rage in my soul like a starless night and think the world will break if I-

And then, suddenly, she knew what to say.

"Because if you walk out," she said, quiet as moonshine on winter snow, "I will not go with you."

Kíli recoiled. "What?" He asked numbly.

"There is a dwarf who was killed," Tauriel said. "There is a guard who was meant to protect me, and he is dead, and I owe him my life. I do not walk away from such debts." She held his gaze, however hard it might have been. "This is the beginning. Can you not feel it, Kíli? It is like the morning before a battlefield: everything is still, but blood hangs in the air."

She paused, but he did not look ready yet to answer that. She continued, shifting paths of attack: "I called you Morwinyon. Do you know what it means, to elves?"

"No," he said, hoarsely.

"It is the name of a star."

"I-" Kíli hesitated. "I thought as much."

Tauriel smiled, small. "It means-" she felt her brows furrow. How to translate such a word? "Light," she decided, in the end. "Light in the dark, it is sometimes said, but most commonly light in twilight; in the time when all is possible." She saw his face, and decided to say more- Kíli was not educated in the way of elves, to hear the unsaid. "It means hope, and change, and it is a reminder of daylight, when all else is lost. It is also," she added, a little lighter, "as dark in color as blood fresh spilt."

"Why would you name me that?"

"Because I've seen the way your people see you," Tauriel said. "Your Uncle was the soul, and your brother his heart; but you were their hope. All of them. When you were dying of Orc poison- you should have seen your brother. You should have seen the others."

"They left me behind," he said.

Tauriel spread her fingers wide, on her lap. "I do not speak for them. I do not know what your Uncle faced, or your brother. But I know what I saw: fear, and love, and something even deeper than that." She shrugged, delicately. "There is no other word for it, I think, than hope."

Kíli looked stricken. "I don't," he said, and then, "I can't," almost helplessly.

"They love you," Tauriel said. "They need you, Kíli. I will not run from Erebor; I ask you, now, to stay as well."

No home save the steel in your spine. Little-One, did you think you could escape me?

Tauriel kept her hands open, face relaxed. I am done running, she thought, cold and fierce and furious. I am done being afraid.

"They tried to kill you," Kíli whispered.

"One tried to kill me," she said. "And another tried to save me. Another did save me. I am not one to tarnish an entire race simply for one's sins."

"Others will try."

"And for fear of that I should run?" Tauriel asked archly. "I'm not running. And, I think, neither are you."

Kíli inhaled sharply, and stumbled over to a chair; slumped into it heavily and dragged a hand down his face. "I cannot keep you safe."

"I can keep myself safe," she said evenly.

"Someone else had to save you!" He barked.

Tauriel sighed. "Yes, but I didn't know they were coming for me, then. I'll be more careful next time."

"Next time?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

For a long moment, they looked at each other. Tauriel felt cold, but it was the cold of thin air at a mountaintop, and not that of a barren wasteland.

Kíli moved forward then, more gracefully than Tauriel had thought possible. He stopped right in front of her and slowly reached upwards, until he rested his hand in the hollow of her collarbone.

"We've faced four armies together," he said lowly. "Is that not enough?"

"We are both warriors," Tauriel replied, just above a whisper. "Our lives are not measured in years, but in battles. I will not run from debts owed, or death, or destruction." She felt the scrape of his calluses against her neck, rough against the soft skin. "You know this. If you think you cannot bear it, then go: but I will not follow."

Kíli's eyes were bright, shining; like stars on a moonless night.

"If you will not come with me," he said, "what use have I, to leave Erebor? Let us face it together."

Tauriel leaned forward, so she rested her forehead on Kíli's. They were so close- she could feel the sweep of his lashes across her cheekbones. She felt something rise inside of her chest, like a laugh but darker; deeper.

For six centuries, when she took a stand- people left. When it got tough, they walked away. Tauriel had held her father's corpse, once, when she was fifteen. A hundred years later she walked back into that cave and slew a monster, and she had done it alone.

Thranduil had never understood her need for vengeance. Legolas had never tried.

"Twinned blades cut deeper," Tauriel murmured.

And then, she kissed him.

It was soft: a press of lips against lips, as close to a promise as Tauriel could give. She pulled away after a moment, though their foreheads still rested together. Kíli didn't seem to be breathing.

She breathed in, let courage flutter down her lungs. "I do not know much of love," Tauriel confessed, softly. "And I am not used to things happening so- quickly. But- but a lot of things, I suppose, happened." She laced her fingers together, resting them on his shoulders; they were almost comically overlong for it. "I would have mourned you, had you fallen in the Battle."

"You saved me," Kíli whispered. Then: "I dreamt it, I thought. I was knocked down, and half-dead; Bolg was after me, with his club, you know? And then there was red, like blood, and after that nothing. I woke up, a week later, and- it was all very confusing."

"It was." She paused; maybe he hadn't gotten the point of what she'd said. "I know very little of love," Tauriel repeated. "But maybe I can call this-"

"Love?" Kíli asked, and it only partially sounded teasing.

Tauriel huffed out a laugh. "Yes," she said.

Kíli looked startled, for just a moment, as if he hadn't expected her to admit it. Then he stepped back: just enough to frame her face with both hands comfortably.

"May I?" He asked, eyes on her lips.

Tauriel inhaled, exhaled, and said, as forcefully as she knew how, "Yes."

…

 **Translation of Khuzdul, Sindarin, and Quenya (Sindarin and Quenya marked with an S and a Q):**

 **Amad: mother**

 **Nebaguabanu: brush of stone**

 **Nadad: Brother**

 **Nunur'amrâb: other-one; of-my-soul**

 **Morwinyon (Q): Arcturus; glint in the dark**

 **Binamsâl: Bad luck**

 **Khi'nututredel: One of the last heir; more specifically, Kili's One, or Tauriel**

 **Nunur'aklum: other-royalty; those not of royal blood**

 **Redêl: Crown prince**

 **Hantalye, Aran'Erebor: Thank you, King of Erebor (Q)**

 **Khabbûna: Forge-lady**

 **Meldir: Friend (S)**

 **Araran: Kingless (S)**

 **Etementa: Banished (S)**

 **Aran'Valinor: King of Valinor; Manwe (S)**

 **Fëa: spirit/soul (S)**

 **Harasul: Flame**

 **Ibkin: Awake!**


	2. Arc 2: strong as the springs of the sea

Thorin stood in front of his people.

Bilbo stood a few feet away from him, hands clasped in front. His hair had been done in neat braids, and he was dressed in dwarvish layers: white shirt and dark blue overcoat, like moonlight on an ocean's surface.

Fíli and Kíli were on his other side. Fíli wore a crown of gold and pearls; Kíli's head was bare. Dís, behind him, stood patiently.

The entire population of dwarves in Erebor was assembled before him.

"Khazad!" He called, and the ambient sound dropped to less than a whisper. Their faces turned upwards, like sunflowers: bright and shining and hopeful, at long last.

"Erebor is reclaimed!" Thorin said, and waited for the cheers to die down, before he continued. "The dragon Smaug is dead, and the Bane of Durin's Line are burned. Their _murdu'shurel_ is sent to Thatrûna. And we will see this kingdom rise to heights those who doubted us cannot imagine!"

This time, the roars went on for almost ten minutes. Thorin watched the crowd for that time, then Bilbo, who looked stunned and awed, and then at Fíli, who watched the people of Erebor with the fierce, possessive love of all of Durin's line.

"There is much we have achieved. There is more we _can_ achieve. We all know that two flames shine brighter than one, Khazad of Erebor, and I am proud to tell you that-" he didn't dare stop, didn't dare pause, but he did allow himself a shallow breath to fill his lungs, "-I have chosen my _yusthel_."

Whispers filled the room.

"Bilbo," Thorin said, quietly, and watched those who'd heard light up in response, "come here."

Bilbo did. He also stumbled over the steps, and when he finally came level to Thorin, he hissed, "Thorin, _what's going on?"_

"I'm announcing our engagement," he said. "As I told you yesterday."

Bilbo turned bright red. "No," he said, "you're _not,_ Thorin, you proposed last _week!_ This was supposed to be about the Meeting, not what- not your _love life! Thorin!"_

"You could have told me this yesterday," Thorin muttered, taken aback. "When I _told_ you."

"I was thinking about-" Bilbo cut off, and turned a red that looked particularly fetching against the blue of his collar.

"Yes?" Dís asked, positively leering from behind the throne.

Bilbo jumped. Thorin tried to muffle his laughter, but clearly it hadn't worked; both Bilbo and Dís sent him filthy glares and turned away.

"It's nothing," he told Dís, fiddling with the hems of his sleeves. "Not fit for polite company, at least."

Dís rolled her eyes. "Both of you are _prudes,"_ she said, sounding disgusted.

"Is this really the time?" Thorin asked her.

She looked ready to answer, but then checked herself. "No," she admitted reluctantly. Then, a little brighter, "But I'll be talking to you later, _nadad."_

"I look forward to it," he muttered. Turned away, only to be called back by Bilbo.

"Thorin!" He said, sounding alarmed, and when he looked, he saw that Bilbo'd finally seen the- frankly predatory- looks on the Company's faces. Particularly Bofur, who was staring so intently at Bilbo that he looked like a deranged axe-man.

"Yes," Thorin said, at a loss for words. "I see them."

"I'm going to steal Bombur's cakes," Bilbo grumbled. Then: "And Bofur's hat, and Glóin's locket, and Dwalin's axe and-" he broke off when Thorin choked on his laughter. "All right, all right, you big lump. Go ahead and announce it. But nobody tells stuff like this to everyone a week later: a proper engagement's private for at least _three_ weeks."

Kíli leaned in, grinning mischievously. "Weren't you saying you weren't a proper hobbit anymore, Uncle Bilbo?"

"I'm thirty years younger than you," Bilbo said despairingly. "Stop calling me Uncle!"

"Nothing said on the propriety of hobbits, Kíli," said Fíli, eyes alit with glee.

"Indeed not, Fíli."

"Boys," Dís said, and the two subsided, though their matching grins said this wasn't the end of it.

Thorin tipped a look at Bilbo, who flushed bright red and fiddled with his hands for a long moment. Then he said, "I said okay already, Thorin. Go on, tell them. They look impatient enough as is."

It was true: while he'd tried to manage- read, wrangle like a cowherder- his family, the rest of the hall was growing restless.

He began to talk, then, and the words flowed easily off his tongue. Thorin didn't remember precisely what he said- everything was lost in a dull haze. He remembered Bilbo's fierce blush, like a red sun, and the broad smiles on his sister's-sons faces, and the warcry that Dain led when the speech was done, which shook the very stone under his feet.

But mostly, when he started talking, all he could hear was his grandfather's voice. When he gestured, he saw his grandfather's arms. Everything was wavering at the edges, and then his chest was hurting, and he thought, _oh._

He was aware of Dís' frown, and Balin's worried looks, but there was nothing for it- he could not stop there. Once the speech was done, though, he stumbled away as quickly as he could, feeling light-headed, and clasped Dwalin's shoulder, tightly, and dragged him to a side-room.

"I've been poisoned," he forced out, through ragged breaths.

Dwalin, who'd looked askance and then irritated, immediately turned serious. "When?" He asked.

"Slow-acting. My sides hurt; chest is worse. Head's spinning." A short breath in, and out. "I don't know."

Dwalin dragged him to a sofa and forced him into it; Thorin might have protested had he not just felt a particularly strong pulse of pain. Then he left, and Thorin slumped back, let his head rest for a long moment.

Everything went black.

When he opened his eyes next, Dís was sitting next to him, looking both fond and annoyed, in a blend of emotion unique to her.

He shifted, and she immediately turned to face him.

"What- happened?"

Dís said, startlingly carefully, "You finished your announcement. Told everyone about the meeting of Dale and Mirkwood and Erebor in two months' time. Then about the engagement with Mister Baggins." She paused for a long moment. "And then you walked out and told Dwalin you thought you'd been poisoned."

"Right." He paused and winced at the light. "Did Oin see to me?"

"Yes," she said. "He also pronounced you 'perfectly fine' but with a case of hyperventilation worse than he'd seen in novices at their first mastery." She arched an eyebrow when he flinched, though her tone gentled. "Thorin- what happened? You were laughing one minute, seemed fine. Your speech was perfect. What _happened?"_

"I thought-" Thorin broke off, and slumped onto the bed. He must have looked utterly confused, or tired; Dís' face creased into lines that spoke of something close to pity, and she ran a hand through his braids.

Thorin leaned into that warm touch against his will.

"Thorin," Dís said, and damn her to hell, but he knew that carefully modulated tone of voice; he knew the way it hid tears and anger and- "Thorin," she said, "did you have a panic attack because you were too _happy?"_

And her voice hid incredulous laughter- but more than that, there was an undertone of pity there, and that Thorin would not allow.

"No," he said flatly. When she didn't look like she believed him he went on, unwillingly, "I just- d'you remember Grandfather? The way he'd talk, and the people would listen, and he looked like a- a- Maia on his golden throne?"

"Yes," Dís said softly.

"I remember his madness," Thorin said wearily. "I don't remember anything but the way his hands clawed, in those last years, and anytime a single coin came in he caressed it like it was his own blood-" He shut his mouth sharply, and continued after a minute, feeling exhaustion down in his bones. "I didn't even know what I was doing, Dís, when we first arrived here. I didn't know about the dragon-sickness until it was too late."

She did not move, or say anything; just waited with the quiet patience borne of knowing him like she knew her own breaths.

"...I'm tired of being afraid," he said, finally.

Of sitting on a throne, and seeing nothing but the shine of mithril and silver. Of levelling a sword at his sister-sons, and not hesitating for a moment to swing it. Of holding a small body by the lapels, pressed so tight he could feel the hard stone of battlements even through it.

"You are not Grandfather," Dís replied. She had retreated, back into the formal distance she played so well; her hands rested in her lap. "And you are not Frérin, either." She tilted her head to the side, predatorily, when he made a wordless protest. "It's always been your problem, Thorin. You couldn't ever let it go. When you were little you wanted to be like Grandfather, and when it was clear he was too far gone to ever actually love you, you decided to be like Frérin." Her lips twisted. "And then Frérin died, and so did Grandfather, and I thought you could actually be yourself- but you just never let go of them."

" _Dís,"_ he said.

"Our family was broken before Smaug ever came," Dís said firmly. "And you, my _lakhad_ , _mashmûn nadad-_ you were the easiest broken."

"That's _enough,_ Dís," Thorin scraped out. "I was the eldest. I was the strongest. I-"

Dís' eyes were shadowed. "You were a weapon Grandfather made to keep Father in check. Thorin- you did everything he asked of you. Frérin wouldn't have."

"Frérin loved Grandfather," Thorin said, and ignored how it felt like someone had punched him in the chest, even after all these years, to speak of his brother. "He adored him."

" _Frérin,"_ Dís said scornfully, "was a foolishly selfish boy who thought the world revolved around him. He was never in awe of Grandfather, Thorin, he was in awe of Grandfather's _power!_ Believe me, he wouldn't have done anything for anyone if he didn't get something back."

Thorin gaped.

He'd made a choice, consciously, to not remember the time in Erebor as a child, mostly for his own sanity. It'd gotten worse, after Azanulbizar- brother and father and grandfather felled in a single battle, Thorin had abandoned most memories that were of anyone he missed. He'd forged and smelted and drowned himself in a numbness that even now was a shield that allowed him to function.

Dís gentled. "He loved just as deeply as he was selfish," she said, finally reaching out and clasping Thorin's hand in hers. "He was a kind boy, Thorin, and a good boy. But he wasn't a saint." She sighed, heavily. "Do you remember what you told me, after Vili died?" She asked, tightening her hands on his. "I asked you what you do, when everything you have is ripped from you. I asked how to rebuild. And you said-"

"Just start it on the first day. By the tenth, it's a habit."

"-yes." She laughed, lightly. "You never took it, did you? Everyone was so broken-up about it, and then you just- picked up the pieces for everyone else. And forgot about yourself in the process. _Idiot_ ," she said, but it was fond. "You did it for everyone else, but Mahal- you never rebuilt anything, did you?"

"I didn't _think_ about it Dís," he shot back. "For years I couldn't remember if I wanted to. By the time I did- I didn't want to."

"Oh, Thorin," Dís said, eyes looking sad and pitying and vaguely irritated, all at once, "you've never _stopped_ thinking about it."

He glared at her, but Dís wasn't fazed; she just continued, with a sort of blank, grim determination.

"You didn't stay inside Ered Luin because you couldn't bear being somewhere that killed Frérin. You didn't ever walk into a mine after Azanulbizar because Grandfather was a miner. You- Mamahdûn's stars- you punched three dwarves in the two weeks you visited me just a decade ago, for _talking about Father_!"

His _sister._ Thorin had a headache that could have rivalled his head after Azog nearly split his skull. He had panicked, he knew it; but what else were you supposed to do when faced with the ghost of your dead Grandfather? When faced with the same circumstances, when he'd already proven he couldn't be trusted- _what was he supposed to do?_

"Never, not once, not for almost a hundred years." Dís rolled her eyes. "And we've all allowed it, because none of us were in a place to care for you, we all had our own problems. But this ends _now,_ you hear me?" Her face turned serious. She got off her chair, and knelt before him; placed one hand on the side of his face, gripping his jaw almost to the point of pain. " _Nun'umudtu:_ enough. _Enough._ You have friends, now, and you have family. Let us take the burden for _once_ , in your Vala-forsaken life."

Thorin felt something shudder inside of him, like a boulder scraping down a hillside made slippery by rain. His mouth was dry, he realized; his hands were trembling very faintly.

If Dís let go of him, right now, he'd- he didn't know _what_ he'd do, but it would be sufficiently dramatic, and self-sacrificing-bordering-on-suicidal. He could feel it rise up in his chest, held behind his teeth with iron will and the stubborness Mahal bred into his dwarves' blood and sinew.

But she didn't. Dís held onto his jaw, face forced to meet her eyes with all the careful blend of firm love that she'd perfected. Her eyes were very brown- Kíli's eyes, their _mother's_ eyes- but there wasn't pity there, any longer: just sympathy, and a compassion so deep it felt more shocking than even Bilbo's betrayal of the Arkenstone.

"I am King," he breathed.

"You think I'll let you go gold-mad again, _nadad?"_ Dís asked archly, and then pressed her forehead to his, slotting into place like she was twelve again, twelve and watching Erebor fall to dragonfire and dust. "You need a break, you tell me. You tell Balin, or Dwalin, or Fíli, or Kíli, or Bilbo, or a hundred other people who'll sell this entire kingdom to save your sorry life."

"Dís," Thorin said, and faltered.

She exhaled a half-laugh, half-sigh. "You're not Thrór, and you're not Frérin. You are Thorin Oakenshield: foolishly brave, dangerously romantic- you're my brother, and my sons' uncle, and our people's king. And if it comes down to it, I will tell you these things as many times as it's needed until you _believe_ it."

Thorin didn't say anything. He had no words for it; none that adequately described how he felt, at least. Just the old, tired gratitude of a worn-out king. But he relaxed into her embrace, and allowed himself to shudder slightly, like the bone-ghosts of his past were finally leaving him.

…

Sifa thanked whatever Vala was looking over her when the population of Erebor decided to collectively ignore her, rather than gossip about her.

Perhaps it had been Dís' fearsome glares the first weeks on the march from Ered Luin. Perhaps it had been a desire to move on from old tragedies, on all sides. Perhaps it had been nothing but Mahal's blessing, for trying to save the Longbeards from themselves.

Sifa was of the opinion that it didn't matter. As long as it helped her, she'd manage.

Now, it was nigh invaluable.

Digging through old works in the library, she had her head down and body mostly hidden. As long as she didn't look too interested in anything, the gossip-mongers wouldn't so much as look at her. If she was particularly good, they'd likely never know she was there.

And the acoustics in this section were remarkable: Sifa could hear them clearly, despite not being in sight of them; she'd seen them coming and ducked away.

"-we brought an army," one of them was grumbling, a little muffled.

The other, taller and thinner, said, "We didn't kill the dragon, though. Oakenshield did it alone."

"They just chased it out of the mountain," the short one retorted. "That Man killed Smaug, not any dwarf. Poor thanks, I'd say, too: setting fire to that Pond-town or what not, and then not giving any gold. No wonder they say Longbeards are greedy."

"You're a Longbeard," said the tall one, dryly.

"I'm just _saying_ that we deserve more!" It sounded like the dwarf had slapped his hand against the wall. After a moment, he muttered, "It doesn't matter. I can't find it anywhere. The Head of the Guild- you know, the Scrivener's- he's a slavedriver, I tell you."

"I don't think he sleeps either."

"D'you get enjoyment out of contradicting me?" He asked irritably.

"Yes," the tall one said. Then, "Oakenshield's not trying to take over the Iron Hills. He's happy here. And I know you've got family in weird places, Fenrid, but be careful. The Longbeards are good people. Best not to get caught up in that politics."

"What do you know of politics?" Fenrid- the short one- grumbled. There was a long silence, and then he said, "Alright, alright, stupid question." A sigh. "Come on, there's nothing more to find here, I've looked everywhere."

Sifa waited a full three-hundred count before walking out, coolly.

Her mind whirled over the possibilities. There was a dwarf who was unhappy with Thorin's rule, from the Iron Hills, and he had family backing. His name was Fenrid, though- that would make things much more complicated; Fenrid was such a common name she could think of seven off the top of her head.

But he was likely in the Scrivener's Guild, and that was the smallest of the ones starting up. It would be easy enough to identify him through that.

And then what? His entire family wouldn't be in on it. Just a few highly placed individuals with enough power and intelligence to think they could gain something from a war between the Iron Hills and Erebor. So Sifa had to find out _who,_ and quickly.

...unless it wasn't a war, but rather a coup.

Dain was keeping a skeleton army, now, outside Erebor; the dwarves not stationed there were put to work in Erebor's Guilds, while actual Ereborean dwarves from across Middle-Earth were notified to the newly-retaken Mountain and asked to return.

The hope was to keep everything rotating, and in a year's time allow Dain to leave with a full army, as well as swell Erebor's population.

Most of the Lords and Ladies inside the mountain were from Dain's kingdom. They would have seen the gold of Erebor, and they would have coveted it.

Sifa started walking a little faster. She'd find out who Fenrid the Scribe was, and then she'd go to a bar close to the mines and listen to some more gossip, and then she'd go talk to Fíli about whether or not Tauriel managed to cool off a rampaging Kíli before he revealed everything to his Uncle.

The fear Sifa held was her own, but also not: it was built by the whispers of a wise-woman and forged by people whose actions only proved their foolishness. She knew things that would get her killed, and she could not stop, because-

Because once upon a time, when everything was taken from her, and when she gave the rest away, an exiled prince did her the courtesy of looking her in the eye and caring.

She owed him four decades of brightness, of laughter, of allowing her to be something more than a pariah. She owed him far more than his life, but she hoped he'd settle for his sanity.

 _They will go mad,_ whispered Blaír's voice, a memory that was both prophecy and warning. _The only way to stop it is forbidden._

Now, Sifa dug her fingers into the linen cloth of her skirts, and thought, _I am a child of a race forbidden by Sulladad himself. But I am a child of Mahal, and I will forge my own way as needed._

…

"Hi, Dori!" Fíli chirped, entering the headquarters to the Weaver's Guild. He was met with a workroom that covered every flat surface with cloth, or string, or needles; he winced at the stain he saw on a low-lying table, probably waiting to be cut up for decorative frills.

Dori looked back at him, and waved him over to the table he was hunched over.

"Hold it firmly on the long end," he ordered, and proceeded to cut a full third off. Putting it away, he asked, "Now. _Redêl,_ anything you need or do you just need your hands busy for an afternoon?"

"Well… I really want to talk to Nori." Fíli shrugged carelessly. "Just have a couple questions for him."

Dori arched an eyebrow. "You couldn't find him?"

"I've been searching for a week," he said.

"Ha! Teach _aklum_ to hire thiefs," he grumbled, and then grew serious. "Anything important?"

"No." Fíli hesitated. "It could be. But I don't know, and I think Nori's got some information, so… best to take care of it before it becomes important, right?"

"Tell you what. Come to the Guild meetings for three days straight- no complaints, no coming in halfway through saying _I forgot-_ and I'll tell him to talk to you tonight."

Fíli inclined his head. "Sounds like a good deal. Though I'm getting the raw end of it."

"Raw?" Dori asked. " _Raw?_ You should've gone to Balin! He'd bleed you dry and ask you to pay for the burial! We're guildmasters now. Nothing for it, if you come in on official hours."

Fíli rolled his eyes stated his thanks, and walked out. No need to make things more complicated than necessary.

As he was passing by the miner's area, he ran into Sifa.

She looked- normal. Paler, perhaps, if someone knew her well, but almost like nothing had changed. When she saw him, however, she went painfully still, and then tipped her head to the side.

He followed her to a vendor, where she began haggling over a piece of cloth; when she was finished she stepped aside, just close enough to brush him, and said, "We need to talk."

"Get in line," he hissed back, looking utterly absorbed in examining a dagger.

"Tonight?"

"I've got to meet with Nori."

She made a face, though it was gone when he looked at her next. "Fine. Come after that, then. It's not like I've got anything to do." She paused. "How'd it go with telling Kíli?"

"Tauriel talked him down," Fíli said. "Find anything important?"

"I'll tell you tonight." Sifa suddenly reached out and gripped his forearm. He stared at it blankly. "Take care, stay safe, and don't do anything _stupid,_ you hear me? Nori Brison is definitely smarter than you think. Don't let your guard down for a moment."

And then she left.

Fíli didn't see where she'd gone, but he left for his quarters right after. He'd taken off his overcoat with a grimace when he saw the shiny person staring at him out of the depths of his favorite armchair.

"Nori," he said, resigned.

Nori shifted a little. "Hello, _redêl,"_ he said, an odd emphasis on the title. "How are you doing today?" He didn't pause for an answer. "Played any pranks on anyone? Disobeyed your parents?" He leveraged himself up, so he was out of the shadow. Fíli saw the angry light in his eyes and grimaced. " _Lied to anyone?"_

"You were- there," Fíli said dully. "When I was talking to Dori."

"Yes, I was," Nori said furiously. "You haven't looked for me for a week. Ya haven't spoken two words to me all week! We were in the same meeting _yesterday._ What, did ya think that just because I'm all legal now I've stopped using me eyes? How much effort does it take to open your mouth and say-"

"I needed it off the books," Fíli interrupted. When Nori glared but held his peace, he went on: "Things have happened. I can't say what. Lives- not my own- depend on it." He took a steadying breath. "I'm not asking as _redêl_ right now."

Nori relaxed a little. His eyes swept over Fíli, likely seeing the sleepless nights, fear and anger written all over his body. There was something very disconcerting in his face when he spoke.

"Is that an order?"

Fíli chewed it over, and remembered Sifa's warning: _don't let your guard down._

"No," he said evenly. "But it is a request. As a friend."

"Let's say I don't want to do it. Then-"

"-I'll order you."

Nori's eyebrows jumped, almost to his hairline. "That important?"

"Could be," Fíli said.

He nodded, and sat down. "Fine. Ask away, _redêl._ And remember-" he smiled, unnervingly wide, "-you are always the crown prince."

…

Bilbo looked to Tauriel.

This was terribly awkward.

He'd approached her through a vague sense of her loneliness- they were the only two non-dwarves inside Erebor, after all, and it must have felt crippling to be so isolated. They could probably make a sort of friendship on that alone.

But when he went to ask her to join him for tea one afternoon, she'd been talking to Kíli, and the two had gone so painfully still he'd backed out of the room immediately. When he returned a day later, she'd scarcely looked him in the eye, though she'd accepted his invitation- he didn't know _why_ she had, because she certainly seemed miserable enough poking at the biscuits.

And all that was before the entrance of Balin's coterie of teachers, all intent on confusing him on the simplest of dwarven customs by the time he got married. Nienna's tears, they were contradictory on everything- from what color his clothes ought to be, to the angle he bowed to different ranks of nobility, to the precise number of minutes he was allowed to spend with Thorin every day.

"Yes, yes, I'll talk to you in an hour's time," he told them, ushering them out before they could further alienate Tauriel, who was watching his interaction interestedly.

"My sincerest apologies," he told her, after they left, seating himself. "They're all very pushy. It can get a bit… overwhelming."

"That seems to be dwarven code for _I like you,"_ Tauriel replied, body relaxing to a further extent than any of his questions on courtship had managed.

"Yes!" Bilbo laughed. "It does. Oh, they're all so annoying. One day they'll tell me I should wear red, then the next they'll tell me green, then the next _purple._ I've got no bloody peace!"

She smiled, thin but true. "Perhaps you should speak to- Lord Dwalin, I believe?- he was in the Company, was he not? He'd likely enjoy spending the time with you, too."

"Balin," he corrected, and tried not to think about Dwalin actually spending hours poring over contracts. Merciful Vala, he'd probably take an axe to them if he got too frustrated. "But it was Balin who actually assigned them to me. He's too busy with the initial drafts of the Meeting to worry about me, so… I've got a-"

"Gaggle?"

"-retinue," he said firmly.

Though it was an amusing picture: six stout dwarves, a foot taller than him and bristling with steel, following him around like baby ducklings.

"Well, if it truly is of such importance that they need to teach you for so many hours, then I suppose I know of one person who can help." Tauriel paused for a moment. "She's rather private, however."

"But she knows these- _rituals?"_

She nodded, dark hair falling over her face for a moment, before she tucked it back. "She's rather knowledgeable, I'd say. Definitely more than Kíli."

Bilbo sighed. "That's not a very high bar."

"Perhaps not." A graceful shrug. "But it couldn't hurt, could it?"

"Perhaps not," he echoed. After a long moment, he shook off the gathering gloom. "Truly, my sincerest apologies. I invited you here and I've been so self-absorbed. Tell me, how goes your life in Erebor?"

Tauriel stiffened once more, but she answered willingly enough. "Quietly, all told. Though after the Battle I think any sort of peace would feel that way."

 _Mirkwood was at peace, and you spent your days hunting giant spiders. I don't think you know what that word_ means.

"Well, the Shire was always rather peaceful. Never quite as busy as this, I'd say," Bilbo said.

"Indeed. I think, someday, I would like to visit such a place." Tauriel offered him a faint smile. "Our stories say Valinor is such a place: a land of plenty, of joy, of peace. To experience it here, in Arda, would be a gift."

"Comparing the Shire to Valinor!" Bilbo exclaimed. "Hamfast would have given you a hundred plum-puddings if he heard. I suppose I'll have to settle for the rock candy these dwarves enjoy." He poked one, sitting bright and purple on the tray, distastefully. "Can you imagine, they just melt the sugar and color it and make it in _rock-shapes!_ No decoration whatsoever."

"Elves make star-cakes," she replied, sketching the shape with her hands. "It's rather difficult if one doesn't have patience. Either it becomes a nicely glowing mass of sugar and fluff, or it just becomes a very sticky, sugary glue. The rock candy is rather addictive, however."

"We decorate our cakes with flowers and, if one is particularly skilled, frosting," Bilbo said. "And no, it is _not."_

Tauriel outright grinned, and he thought he could see the edges of her that met Kíli's in that moment; often, she was so reserved people couldn't understand how Kíli could love her- but there was something in her eyes that spoke of warmth, and something in her lips that spoke of laughter, and something in her spine that spoke of pride- and Bilbo couldn't think of three other things that described Kíli so well, so perhaps it wasn't so much a mystery at all.

"When I was young," she was saying, "I didn't have so many childish things at all. My parents were wanderers; they had little time for star-cakes or ribbon games. I always thought it was because they simply didn't find it important, but when I turned ten I begged them for one cake, just a taste- and they gave in." Tauriel pressed a demure hand to her lips, as though trying to force a smile back, before giving it up as a lost cause. "Turned out that Emel had less aptitude for baking than she did for singing, and she could make every bird in the forest fall quiet in a quarter-league radius. Not," she added, "in a good way."

Bilbo laughed. "My father was very much the strict parent," he found himself saying, though he hadn't thought to; there was a faint ache, however, in Tauriel's face, and he thought he understood that pain very well- an old scar that barely twinged, only thought of in passing.

An orphan's curse.

"And your mother?" She asked, warmth suffusing her face.

"She was an adventurer herself, went with Gandalf to all these places." He waved a hand. "She stayed in Rivendell for a year, I heard, before deciding to head back. And then she got married to Bungo Baggins, most proper bachelor in the Shire." An incredulous laugh. "I never understood it, you know. Nobody else did, either, but… they were in love."

"I'm sure nobody will understand your marriage either," Tauriel said wryly.

"Nor yours."

"Well," she said, "I don't think we do, either."

Bilbo inclined his head: fair point. He then looked at the time and grimaced. He had scarcely fifteen minutes before they came back, and he needed to get rid of the trays and get a couple more chairs-

"I'll take my leave," Tauriel said.

Bilbo looked at her gratefully. It was such a refreshing change to have subtle cues be addressed and reacted to; he was well aware that had she been Fíli or Kíli, he'd have to tell them to leave before they left.

She rose and was to the door, when she paused and turned back, looking oddly hesitant.

"Would you like to have tea with me, sometime?" She asked.

Bilbo lit up. He smiled widely at her, and said, "Oh, of course! I think it'll do some good for both of us to have someone not-dwarf to talk to, don't you?"

"This was- a pleasure," Tauriel replied slowly. "I think it will be a nice distraction. Thank you, Master Baggins."

A perfunctory bow, and she left.

Later, in the comfortable exhaustion borne of boredom, Bilbo wondered, _distraction from what?_

…

"So what happened?"

Sifa had been waiting in the damned room for almost four hours. The least Fíli could do was give her a straight answer.

"Nori's got contacts," he told her, after sinking into a chair. "I wanted to hear if he knew something of what's going on."

"And?"

"He said Uncle's been keeping him busy, out of Erebor. Apparently he thinks there'll be more trouble coming from that side." Fíli looked directly at her. "Everyone's worried about the Meeting."

"Mirkwood and Erebor and Dale in one room," Sifa said darkly. "It's a recipe for trouble."

"Well- yes." He grimaced. "So Nori's been focusing on Dale, mostly, 'cause it's closer than Mirkwood and men are easier bought off than elves." At her look, he said, "His words, not mine." And went on, "Mirkwood and Laketown had a deal going on for some time- it was because of Thranduil that there was any Laketown at all, apparently. He shipped some food and drink in every winter. Don't know why."

"Probably old treaties," Sifa said.

Fíli shrugged. "So, now, Bard Dragonslayer probably wants to maintain that relationship with Dale and Mirkwood. Which leaves us at a disadvantage."

"Little wonder your Uncle's worried, then."

"Yeah." He paused for a moment and fiddled with the loose laces of his overcoat. "Nori says the elves- and, a bit less than that, the men- are waiting for an insult to withdraw from the Meeting."

Sifa frowned. It didn't make sense, not really. Erebor wanted to renew old treaties. It was a reasonable thing, all told. So why wait for an insult?

 _Unless… they suspect something._

"We cannot eat gold," she said quietly. Looked up and met his eyes, hooded with a horror that said he'd seen it, that he too knew what was to come. "Fíli," she whispered, "do they mean to starve us?"

"Dain's food can last us until winter," he replied. "But through it? Not so much. And we'll be placed fully under his debt if we ask for those stores."

Everything was coming together, and it formed a picture both bleak and infuriating.

"Iron Hill dwarves are unhappy with being ruled by Erebor," she said flatly, running through the permutations in her mind- how this changed everything, how this affected what they would do. "There's a family who're stirring up some trouble there. I know who, and I'm keeping tabs on them."

"Good," Fíli said.

But Sifa was not done- she was not close to being done.

"Let's assume that they're unhappy with being a vassal kingdom," Sifa said slowly, feeling tension spiral through her shoulders. Fíli straightened, looking at her. "Let's assume they want to be separated from Erebor, but it would be suicide to do so- the Iron Hills aren't rich enough to be a warrior state even if they spend decades investing in it, they've got nothing to trade with."

"Alright," he said. "Then we're left with them wanting to be equal to Erebor."

"...but what if they install their own king onto the throne?"

"Dain?" Fíli asked, looking startled. "He'd never agree. He's too… how would you say, _bingurthu?_ Without ambition. He's happy enough ruling the Iron Hills."

"And all his nobility are as well?" She asked archly. Shook her head. "Let's say they want to place him on the throne. Let's say they do this. Why not do it when the Meeting happens, when they can have two impartial people- two _kings-_ as witnesses?"

"A coup?"

Sifa thought, _Do you understand why I'm terrified, right now? We are children, and we are playing such a dangerous game-_

But such thoughts led nowhere. Despair only festered.

"Perhaps," she said.

Fíli sighed. "We'll need to make sure they're not insulted, then, when they come."

"The treaties will have to be fair."

"Uncle will listen to Balin about that."

"Tauriel and I aren't as busy as you or Kíli," she said. "We can draft a treaty that doesn't insult anyone." A faint, wry twist of the lips. "Besides, how hard can it be?"

Fíli sighed, again, and got up; he took a bottle of wine he'd hidden somewhere on his person and popped the lid open; drank deeply, and handed it to her. Then he sank into the chair, sprawling bonelessly.

"You'll regret that, I'm sure," he told her.

Sifa took a deep swig. She'd never liked wine all that much, but this was- strange. Lighter, fruitier, and intoxicating in a way she hadn't experienced before.

"Elf-made?" She asked.

"Yes."

"This is a nightmare in the making," she told him. "We're all going to die."

"I'll save a space for you in the Halls, then," Fíli replied blandly.

Sifa tossed him the bottle. "Shut up. We need plans. We need contingencies. We need-"

"Sifa," he said tiredly, "all due respect, but shut up."

She made a face at him and took back the bottle. "Don't be stupid."

"I'm not!" He deflated. "But not tonight. We'll make plans, continents, whatever, tomorrow."

" _Contingencies,"_ Sifa said.

"You're a snob."

"Never said I wasn't."

Fíli relaxed into the chair, and drained the bottle- Sifa waved a hand airily at his mumbled apology.

The world was already spinning hazily, gaining the dreamlike edge strong alcohol lent. She felt numb instead of relaxed though, like someone had unmoored her while unbalanced; too many things running around her head, and too many unnamed worries.

Time passed. Sifa drowsed in her chair, too warm and lazy to move. Fíli must have felt the same: he hadn't moved either, and they were slumped together in matching poses of exhausted drunkenness.

Then Fíli spoke.

"I've been thinking about what you said," he began.

Sifa looked at him blearily. "And?" She remembered to say.

"I think… I think we can make it work."

"You had to tell me this while we were _drunk?"_ Sifa demanded, trying to rise from her chair and unbalancing.

Fíli laughed, loud and wild and full-bodied. "I'd forgotten about it!"

"Did you really?" She deadpanned.

"I didn't-" he broke off, looking ungainly and awkward as if he were thirty once more, all thick bones and heavy hair and none of the warrior grace he grew into.

"Don't hurt yourself," Sifa drawled, slumping back into the chair.

But her heart was pounding, and there was a warmth in her fingertips that hadn't been there moments earlier. When she'd told Fíli that she'd never choose the path of _khabbuna,_ she'd spoken true: it had never quite agreed with her. And it was selfish, perhaps, to want something only on your terms, but it was the kind of selfish that she couldn't unlearn; it was something she'd woven her entire existence out of.

"Don't be mean," he retorted, voice slurred at the edges, and then he softened. "Do you think we can- are you willing to- try?"

Fíli was a lighthouse on a craggy cliffside, steady even through the worst winter storm. He was warmth, the sunlight after summer showers and fire of a lit forge. He was kindness and honor and duty, and he held a softness in his core that Sifa would never have.

Sifa remembered a callused palm, pressed against hers in a time of despair, and she remembered hope.

"Yes," she said.

…

"May I come in?"

Tauriel looked up and nodded to Sifa, who stood in the doorway. Then she looked back down, to her book, before glancing up at her once more, when Sifa sat down heavily. There was an unnameable weight on her shoulders, and something about her eyes that was both frightened and frightening.

Gently, Tauriel set the book aside. "Is something the matter?" She asked.

"How much have you spoken to Fíli?"

"Not since the announcement of the Meeting," Tauriel said. "Why, has something happened?"

And Sifa explained, at that: of a dwarven contingent sent by a King of Erebor, nearly four centuries previous, to explore a mining region north of the Lonely Mountain. Of the colony established there; and then the arrival of Smaug, who displaced those of Erebor- who then headed to the closest place that would shelter them.

Of a long, cold winter in the Iron Hills, during which as many dwarves starved as they did fleeing Smaug, and the dangerous trek southwest, that spring: of arrival in Ered Luin and safety, only to find it cursed with shaking mines and scarce resources.

Of poverty, and a fiercely prideful race ground down with blow after blow, and the vengeful joy that came from reclaiming what was taken unjustly.

"Times are no longer as bad," Sifa said, hands folding in her lap, as golden as lamplight. "We've found mines deeper inside, and a few veins of iron and silver. But there are those in the Iron Hills who think the people of Erebor ought to pay them back, for a century of hardship made even worse."

"Is it that bad?" Tauriel asked.

For it did not seem overmuch, to ask for something in return for a century of support- even if it was not particularly gracious, or polite.

"What is needed will be given," Sifa replied, cold as blooded steel. "What is asked for, or requested, honorably: it will be given. But not like this. Not by stealing in the dark, not through poisoned knives and whispered words and _threats._ The dwarves of the Iron Hills forget themselves, in their greed. They forget that they are Longbeards, and that they have sworn fealty to the King Under the Mountain."

She looked, Tauriel thought, like the ancient dwarf-queens from the tapestries in Mirkwood. Hair braided back, an expression on her face not of the cold boredom of elf-royalty but such fierce passion that it seemed to leap out of wool, seemed to sear into one's soul.

It had frightened Tauriel when she'd first seen it.

It frightened her now, to see it on a face not frozen in cloth but shifting and moving and _alive._

Sifa must have seen something of that in her face, for her anger faded, replaced with a rueful look that reminded Tauriel of Legolas after he raged over something and came to her the next morning, calm once more.

"I apologize," Sifa said, quirking a smile. "But there are things that are infuriating, and then there is treason: I do not take such things kindly. I never have."

"No need," Tauriel replied, waving it away. What was a snappish tone, among friends? Particularly dwarven friends, who were as quick to temper as they were to forgive? "But," she continued, mostly in hopes of finding out what Sifa wished to do about this entire mess, "whatever can be done without telling the King? And banishing me, as it were, which achieves their goals entirely?"

"We must stop them," said Sifa. "We must do it quietly, and watchfully, and these are not dwarven traits, Madam Elf: this is your purview."

"I am glad to be of use," she replied, dry.

Sifa's face sobered quickly. "They wish you banished to sow anger in the line of Durin," she began. "If you live, Kíli will leave with you, and weaken Thorin Oakenshield's reputation. The Line itself will definitely be weakened, with the _redel_ gone, but that is… far off. If you die, they can push for a match between Kíli and someone else, of their choosing. When he refuses, they can claim insult."

"If I die," said Tauriel.

"Yes," murmured Sifa. "If. Now. That ensures dwarven kingdoms do not question a coup, but the elves, and men? They will need an explanation. But it is easier to simply offer them insult, and before everything devolves into war, step in with a handy solution."

"The Meeting of Three Kings," Tauriel said sharply. "We spoke of it, when we bearded the assassin. If they mean to attack then…"

"Offer men and elves insult," Sifa repeated. "And step in with a solution." She paused for a minute, a half-smile curling over her lips. "Which, incidentally, is why I am here."

"Why?" Tauriel asked.

"How would you," Sifa asked, eyes glittering like a lit forge, deliberately slowly, "like to draft a treaty that does not offer insult to any of the three races?"

Tauriel spluttered.

" _What."_ After a pause, in which Sifa did not burst out in laughter or call it a joke, she said, "I knew the princes to be foolish, but not that you would join them. I don't even- do you have any idea how _hard_ it is to draft such a treaty?"

"I haven't done one before," Sifa said blithely.

"How long do we have?" She asked.

"Three weeks," Sifa said.

"Three weeks," Tauriel said flatly. "Just over a fortnight to get past cultural differences, look at precedence, make sure everything's benefiting Erebor, and ensure nothing's insulting to Mirkwood. Or Dale."

"When you put it that way," Sifa said, "it sounds rather difficult."

Tauriel looked at her disbelievingly. "Really? Because it sounds almost impossible, from where I'm standing."

Sifa rolled her eyes. "We try. That's the point, yes? We try, and we might fail, but we might succeed as well."

"Was this what Mithrandir told Thorin Oakenshield, to set out east and take on a dragon?" Tauriel asked. " _We try and we might fail, but we might succeed as well?"_

"I, personally, think we've a better chance than the Company did against Smaug," Sifa told her.

"Oh, really?" Tauriel retorted. Her head ached already, thinking of what would be needed.

She was not a scribe, she wanted to protest, but then she imagined Sifa's reaction to that: it wasn't as if either Fíli or Kíli were scribes either, and they weren't elves, at that, to identify possible insults. Like it or not, she was bound to the work.

 _I will regret this,_ she thought, and said aloud, "We are not going to be able to sleep."

Sifa bared her teeth, alarmingly wide, and said, "This will be fun."

…

Kíli caught up to Fíli, catching his shoulder.

" _Nadad,"_ he said, swiveling him around and pressing him to the stone. "Is something going on?"

"There's a lot going on, Kíli," Fíli retorted, yanking his arm away. "As I'm sure you know. Anything specific?"

"You've been acting strange."

Fíli paused. "Have I?"

Kíli exhaled sharply. " _Yes._ You've barely been in our rooms for a month. And when I do see you, you look terrible!"

"Thank you," he said dryly. "It's clear why Uncle's been keeping you away from meetings on the Meeting: you're going to call the elves weed-eating tree killers in ten minutes' time of their entering Erebor, and smile while you do it."

" _Fíli,"_ Kíli said, not sure if he was insulted or irritated.

His brother sent him a look that perfectly mixed exasperation and condescension.

" _Kíli,"_ he mimicked, and started to walk. Kíli followed, disgruntled. "I've got to talk to Mother about some things with the jeweler's guild," he explained, waving a scroll about. "Apparently they've found a nice seam of _thikil'abnith_ in the northern mines, but the foundation's a bit shaky. They're wondering if they should stop and wait for proper support, or risk losing out on the shine."

"Steel-stone?" Kíli asked. "I thought they could make it shine with that process, what's it called- Grit's?"

"Lirgs' Process," Fíli said. "And they can, but it takes a fair number of people to get it going, and even more to keep it working." A shrug. "We don't have that many, yet."

Kíli rolled his eyes. "Fine. Whatever. Amad's going to take care of it. What matters is that you're suddenly looking like you've seen a ghost, and you've spent the past month avoiding everything and everyone like the plague!" He leaned forward and grabbed Fíli's arm, though he softened his tone; there was no need to make Fíli defensive. "You haven't even gone to sparring with Dwalin, and he's getting mad about it."

Fíli looked faintly worried. "When was this?"

"Oh… a week ago."

"And you didn't tell me?" Fíli yelped, now looking definitively worried. "Kíli!"

Kíli folded his arms over his chest.

"Dwalin's going to kill me," he moaned. "I'm going to _die_ and it's all your fault!"

"Just tell him you were with Balin the whole time," Kíli said unsympathetically. Fíli groaned even louder at that: both of them remembered a time when Balin had gotten so irritated with Dwalin for stealing his students that he'd issued a challenge to his brother to establish a quota of warriors taken from scribe-school.

"He's going to kill me!" Fíli cried. "You know it very well, you blasted selfish-"

" _Fíli,"_ said Kíli, stepping forward and pressing him back, so Fíli's back was against stone; it served to cut off his brother's increasingly vulgar curses as well. " _What_ is going on?"

Fíli eyed him for a long moment. He was still pale, Kíli noted, and there was a tension still in Fíli's face like a strung bow. But it was no longer as oppressive as it had been before they started talking.

"You know about the attempt on Tauriel's life," he said, almost soundlessly. "Yesterday I found out that it might have to do with Iron Hill dwarves who don't like us." He yanked his arm out of Kíli's grip, and stepped away, ignoring Kíli's sudden intake of breath. "I have to go-"

"I thought it had to do with Sifa," Kíli said bluntly, pushing past the initial surge of fury at remembering Tauriel's pale face, the steady way she said _I will not leave_ and the thought of her throat being slit, red against white against green.

Fíli went paler, and there was something in his eyes that told Kíli he was being measured for some trait that went beyond even brotherly loyalty.

"It's not-" he paused, gathering his thoughts. "It's not so simple as her," he said. "Just a lot of things. Coming together at the wrong time. We need an heir. The line can't end with you." Fíli's hands tightened on the scroll, crumpling the paper. "So we have to move fast. Sifa-" his eyes were glassy with terror and anger. "-doesn't _understand."_

Here was the person Kíli'd been fearful of when he awoke after the Battle: here was the person who bore burdens without flinching, and then startled when he stumbled under them.

" _Nunur'amrâb,"_ he said, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around him. "I knew you to be a _lalkhûn_ , but never this _much_ of one. The line ending? I'm not even eighty. You're just past it. Uncle's there, and so's Amad, and nobody's trying to kill _us-"_ which still angered him deep inside his bones, in a way he couldn't describe. "-so we're fine. Fíli: breathe. Breathing is good. And if you worry about this, I don't know how many times I've told you, _tell me._ Tell anyone. Mahal- go to the mountaintop and tell _him_ if you have to."

The aborted hiccups running through Fíli's frame lessened, in both intensity and number, and a moment later he pushed Kíli away. He was still looking shaky, Kíli decided, but not quite as unsteady as before. The taut, sallow look of his face had faded.

"Are you not frightened?" Fíli asked.

Kíli tipped his head to the side slowly. "I do not think so much as you, _nadad,"_ he said. Overriding Fíli's protests, he continued: "And that is why I am glad you are _redêl,_ and I am not. So… I act, and do not think. While you see the darkest path I see the brighter one." A sigh, playful and jarringly honest at the same time. "But I am frightened. We are alone in this, as we have never been. It is terrifying. If we lose, I lose Tauriel, and do you think I am not scared of that?"

Fíli stared at him. Then he said, plainly, "We can't tell anyone. That's what frightens me. If we don't carry it off- best thing that'll happen is that Dain becomes King."

"One thing at a time," Kíli replied firmly. "We've fought Orcs and wargs and a dragon, and we've done it together. What's Balin's saying? 'The foolish dwarf mines the shallow stream and comes with flakes of gold. The cunning dwarf mines the deepest crevices of a mountain and comes with nuggets of gold. But the wise dwarf mines the dangerous cliffs, and unearths the source of it all.'"

"What does that have to do with _us?"_ Fíli asked flatly.

"No risk," said Kíli, "no reward. And we are taking the largest risk, Fíli, so we can get the largest reward."

"It's our _people."_

"And it's for them we're doing it."

Fíli nodded, but he looked resigned and exhausted, and Kíli felt his patience fracture.

" _Nadad,"_ he said sharply, and when Fíli startled, he kept his irritation at the fore. "We are _khazad._ We are Durins. We do what we must, and keep to those oaths. Would you deny it?"

Once again, Fíli stared at him as if he'd never seen Kíli before. But before the silence got anything more than faintly awkward, he spoke.

"No. I would not." He sketched a bow, and then flicked his fingers in the sign for _thank you._ "I must deliver this to Amad," he told Kíli, gesturing to the crumpled roll of paper in his hand, though his tone sounded slightly regretful. "Tell Dwalin I'll come to the practice grounds tonight. And…" After a brief hesitation, he said, "Let us talk tonight, _nadadith._ After supper. I think I've spent too much time in my own head."

"You always do," Kíli said. "Fine. I'll tell Dwalin, but be ready for a beating the likes of which you haven't seen for decades. He's on a warpath."

Fíli glared at him, a fine red flush on his cheeks. "And whose fault is that?"

" _Yours,"_ said Kíli, and walked away.

…

Bilbo knocked on the door.

Firmly.

Not timidly, not at all. Not with a hand that faltered halfway there and might have dipped away had he not remembered the hellish gleam in the Royal Gaggle's _eyes._

"May I help-" The dwarf who opened the door looked startlingly sharp-edged. Her dark hair was braided in a fashion similar to Oin's, and though she did not have a beard her sideburns were long enough to hold several small braids. Her skin was darker than any of the Company, but what drew the eye was her expression of barely concealed irritation.

Upon recognizing him, however, she spoke politely enough. "Consort-Presumptive. How may I help you?"

Bilbo would have dithered, had he not recognized that flare of impatience on her face: Thorin's own brand of disdain was remarkably similar.

Instead, he chose bluntness.

"Lady Sifa," he greeted, and continued, "the Lady Tauriel told me that you've knowledge of dwarven rituals." He pasted on a hopeful smile. "Would you be willing to spend an afternoon telling me of it?"

She looked startled, and then resignedly exasperated. "I am a word-smith," she told him. "Not one of the Scrivener's Guild. The Lord Balin would be a far better choice than me." A graceful lift of the eyebrows. "I'd heard tell of a group of seven dwarves assigned to tell you this very information."

Bilbo's cheeks heated uncomfortably. "They're very contradictory," he said.

It was all so _stifling._ Bilbo had wanted a wedding on one of the balconies: if he couldn't have earth under his feet, he'd make do with sun; but the Royal Gaggle were insistent on a wedding in the marble-bowers of the third Durin, for reasons still unclear to Bilbo. Bilbo had wanted to send invitations to elves, but he'd been refused categorically. Bilbo had wanted to talk to Thorin just yesterday, and been effectively blocked from doing so for a full evening.

Had he not seen Balin's exhausted face, he might have thrown a tantrum that would have done Thorin proud. But Bilbo _had_ seen Balin's weariness, and he'd understood that it wasn't some purposely cruel joke being played on him; it was just the rigors of royal life wearing on him.

It was why he'd come here. If he could have someone try to explain to him these traditions that dwarves took so seriously, without frills and with patience, he'd certainly be able to understand.

Some of that must have shown on his face. There was no other reason for Sifa to step back, and wave him inside, and even less for her to offer him tea and biscuits with a sympathetic look on her face.

"Did the dwarves assigned to you say something specifically strange?" She asked, when he glared into the cup mutinously- too much sugar and a foreign taste, but tea nonetheless; Bilbo was at once homesick and not. "For there is much in our culture that is different from others', and without proper explanation can appear… baffling."

"When I left them they were debating over Consort or Queen," Bilbo told her grumpily. "Even though I told them multiple times I'm not _female,_ they refuse to believe it!" Looked up, to see her carefully blank face. "...is that not correct?"

"Consort or Queen," she said, waving a hand. "They are not the same thing. Khuzdul… does not have a name for Queen, as in Westron. It is as close a translation as you can get, I believe, but it is still imperfect."

"I don't understand."

Sifa sighed. "It is a long explanation indeed, if you wish to start with that."

It was a way out, if he wanted it. Bilbo sipped his sugary tea and remembered the way the Royal Gaggle talked around him, like he couldn't understand what they were saying, and when speaking to him always addressed him as they would a child.

He said, "It's as good a place as any."

"Very well," said Sifa, shifting slightly as if to get comfortable. "Then I shall begin by telling you that my people's first language is Khuzdul, and Westron is a close second. What I mean is: there are some things we name in Khuzdul that cannot be directly translated, and when they were translated they were not done so with the greatest care." She smiled, faintly. "It is what has happened with- Queen, and Consort, and, I think, King."

"Are you saying Queen isn't Queen in Khuzdul?" Bilbo asked.

"Precisely." Sifa placed her cup to the side, and began gesturing as she spoke; it felt reassuringly like his cousin Drogo's mannerisms. "King Thorin has named you his _yusthel,_ and the best translation of that would be-" she hummed for a moment, breaking off, and went on, "-partner, the one and only. Or, rather, his true partner."

Bilbo frowned. "So, that would be your title of Consort, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," she said.

"Then what is the difference between Consort and Queen?" He asked helplessly. "I am not female, so I am not Queen. That is how it _is_ in Westron. Is Consort not just a- name, replacing Queen?"

Sifa's face shifted, like she was both surprised and angered. "Have they told you nothing?" She asked sharply.

"No," Bilbo replied.

Sifa sent him a hard look, and then relaxed, albeit slightly unwillingly. There was a hint of discomfort in the line of her shoulders.

"Many dwarves do not take wives," she said, almost tonelessly. "Not enough dames, you see, and there are dames who do not wish for any sort of husband- they might take another dame, or choose to become a _khabbûna:_ to marry her profession.

"And so, as the kings are dwarves, they can love whomever they wish, be it dwarf, Man, or Hobbit-" she gestured to him, "-but they must also do their duty by their people, and marry another, to carry on the lineage."

"What," said Bilbo, feeling his ears start to ring distantly.

Sifa looked at him pityingly. "If the person the King loves is unsuitable for the political landscape, they must take another, a wife who is suitable to the people."

"Nobody told me this," Bilbo said numbly.

"No," said Sifa, looking annoyed. "They wouldn't have, the idiotic children. Likely afraid you'll leave, if you hear of it, and they'd be determined to keep you here." She slanted him a measuring look, and then, suddenly, grinned. "How many times have you proven them wrong, Master Baggins?"

He blinked slowly, ears still ringing. "Ah. A few, I think, but mostly I- did what I had to do."

"Stubborn," she said, almost laughing, "and dutiful, and with a heart large enough to swallow Erebor whole. I do believe, had it not been the King you fell for, you'd be chasing them off with a stick."

Then her laughter faded, replaced with a look that was, while sympathetic, not coddling. Bilbo felt flushed and awkward and uncomfortably like he had when facing off against Azog, and, against his better judgment, he said, "I still am, you know. There've been at least five jewels left on my doorstep, and none of them are from Thorin."

Sifa's face darkened for a moment, but then she seemed to forcibly lighten. "That's very rude," she told him. "But not altogether unexpected, I suppose. Any jewels given after the King declared his courtship?"

"No," said Bilbo.

"There you have it," she said, satisfied. Her mien remained calm, when she continued: "There are contracts, you know, for this sort of thing. Thorin Oakenshield might be forced to take a wife- that is something that will be determined by his Council, and is certainly out of your hands- but you can guarantee that he has no relations with her, when and if that happens."

"Relations?" Bilbo asked delicately.

Sifa's lips pinched shut. "The marriage bed," she replied.

"Ah."

"Indeed."

A moment's pause, then: "The King has his heirs. If you wish it, a contract can be enforced. That the dwarves assigned to you are even debating over whether or not your title is Queen or Consort is… a good sign."

"I can't bear children," Bilbo said.

"Details," she said dryly. "Master Baggins-"

"Please, call me Bilbo."

"- _Bilbo,_ we dwarves are possessive. We hold onto that which we claim ours, and it takes much to let it go." Her eyes swept over him intently. "Did you know, our wedding vows are _may the grips of our souls never waver?_ Such a binding is irrevocable. No dwarf would even question it if you desired Thorin Oakenshield to enter your bed alone."

Bilbo's hands drummed out a rhythm against his leg, and he felt his cheeks flush again- if he wasn't careful, every dwarf from Erebor to the Iron Hills would think him a fainting tween from the Shire. Come to think of it, they probably already _did_ see him as such.

"Why are they debating Queen or Consort, then?" He croaked, and leaned forward to set aside his cup of tea: it had cooled, and with it the sugar had hardened, so it tasted like some watery confection Lobelia made with great gusto and little patience.

Sifa looked, then, highly amused once more.

"Because," she said, "they probably think of you as female."

Bilbo choked, and reflexively sipped the tea, and then regretted that very much.

" _Why?"_ He managed, after a full minute of trying to breathe through his airway.

"You dress unlike any dwarf, and your hair is finer than most male dwarves, and-" she tipped her head to the side, "-you're curvier than most males."

"I _beg your pardon,"_ he snapped. Then he saw her twitching lips, and leaned back grumpily, as Sifa lost the battle with her composure and started to laugh, loudly. "'Tis rude to mock," he told her.

"I'm sorry," she retorted, through gasps, "but it wasn't I who was desperate enough to knock on a stranger's door and ask for help with private matters!"

"No," Bilbo agreed, and slanted her a look, both curious and desperate to change the topic. "But come to think of it, all I know of you is that Tauriel likes you, and you know much of dwarven history and rituals, and you've more patience than the Royal Gaggle."

Sifa arched an eyebrow incredulously. "Royal Gaggle?"

"The dwarves assigned to me," Bilbo said, lifting his chin. When Sifa did not reprimand him, he said, "They _are._ And they're rude, and domineering, and I think if it wasn't terribly undwarven, they'd be biting each other like geese, so it's a perfect name."

"They're the Lords of the Iron Hills," she said mildly.

"Yes, well." Bilbo sent her a hard look. "This was all to distract me from talking about you, wasn't it?"

"No," Sifa said, and sighed when he didn't let it go. "No, it wasn't. But there isn't much to tell you about myself, and less still that you would be glad to hear." Her eyes were intent once more, and a touch sad, but with a sardonic edge underlying it all. "It is not a happy tale, Master- Bilbo, though I suppose there are few enough of those in our history."

"I've heard of Thorin's story," Bilbo told her. "It cannot be sadder than that, I think."

She tipped her head to the side, and her eyes lit with a dangerous gleam. "I was, once, betrothed to the Prince Fíli," she said. "Until my father wished for something that was not his, and was banished for that greed." Her eyes lifted to his, unyielding like steel. "The betrothal was broken off."

"Not so sad as Thorin's," Bilbo said, taking care to keep his voice as unpitying as possible without being cruel.

"No," she agreed. "Though the Durins have a pain all their own. I-" Sifa looked terribly awkward for the first time, and he frowned mentally, thinking it over.

 _Oh._

"Did you love him?" Bilbo asked curiously. "Before the betrothal got broken off, I mean."

Sifa's eyes were shadowed, and her face was at once frightened and challenging: afraid, likely, for what he could say; and challenging because she was a dwarf, and they'd never face any fear without steel, whether in spine or hand.

"No," she said, looking straight at him, jaw clenched mulishly. "Not as such. I found him irritating, and grating, and far too childish for my own comforts." Bilbo laughed, and some of the stiffness leaked out of her body. "It was- after. My father's banishment was shameful, you see, and my mother and I kept our home and title by the skin of our teeth, and nobody would speak to me without sneering, or a sort of pity that digs under your skin-" she broke off, fingers rubbing over the thin skin of her wrist as if thorns had slid in. Calmer, she said, "Fíli spoke to me, and he treated me as if nothing had changed, and that was a kindness unexpected but- present, nonetheless."

"It's a terrible thing," Bilbo said, remembering long silences in a smial built for a rambunctious family, "to be left alone in the world."

Sifa nodded, and sighed, and the weight of her shoulders dripped away. "And yourself, Bilbo? You have named yourself elf-friend and dwarf-kin, and you are set to be consort to the seventh King of the dwarves. But what of your life before the adventures of dragons?"

"The Shire was very calm," he said, reaching for words to answer this. There was still a hazardous light in Sifa's dark eyes, and he thought he'd have to speak very carefully now, for she had offered him both trust and truth and clearly, she prized both dearly. "It was always- quiet. All save the Fell Winter, of course, but I was still a fauntling when that happened, and both my parents survived that."

"Then how did you come to know loneliness?" Sifa asked.

"My father was traveling to Bree for a meeting between some other merchants in the area, and he fell sick on the way back," Bilbo said. "He was not young, and it was winter, and the chill took him. It was very quick." It had been, too; Bungo Baggins had been a withered, pale husk by the time he died, but he hadn't been forced to suffer overlong. "And my mother, she…"

It had been very many years since he spoke of them like this. Bilbo had mentioned both his parents to the Company, but none had seemed over-interested in tales of a too-proper Hobbit and his foolishly adventurous wife, so Bilbo had held his tongue on both matters.

But he could still smell his mother's rose hip tea, when the winds of the mountain shifted correctly.

"She was the one who knew courage, the Shire would say, but. Well. She was selfish, and burned bright as a star, when talking of her adventures with Gandalf, and she was the kindest person I knew- apart from my father of course- and for the longest time I couldn't understand how they could love each other, either of them, they were so different, but now it's. It's clear."

A quiet hand on his, hair like starlit water, eyes like the coldest stars; kindness, running through veins like flame under the earth, and an honor so strong it could bend the very Vala to his plight.

"In our histories," Sifa said slowly, "there is a tale of two dwarves, in the first war against Morgoth. They commanded no armies, and held no fae power, and were as every other dwarf in the land. But then they met each other, and there was a fury on that day, in the battlefield, and the Orcs were driven back faster and with less casualties than ever before or after. We call them battle-wed, those dwarves who find their love in the heat of blood, after them, even if they do not meet in war as such."

"Thorin and I aren't wed," Bilbo said quietly.

"No," said Sifa, eyes level, face calm, like a steady harbor in a roaring sea, "but I think that you are battle-wed. That there is a heartbeat twinned to your own, and a warmth that you feel even when not beside him. What is the formality of a marriage, when such is done already?"

"I was told Mahal gave his blessing to your unions, and that was what made it work," Bilbo replied.

"Not in _ishmerafrân'mudtul,"_ she said quizzically. "Not for every marriage we dwarves perform. Valar above, did you think so? Mahal'd not have time for anything else, then, he'd be so busy officiating!"

He sighed, and smiled, and they fell into silence. But then Bilbo saw her look at the door suddenly, guiltily.

"I'm not quite as busy as the rest of the mountain," she explained, seeing the look on his face, "but that does not mean I've not work to do. I ought to have delivered some number of books hours ago, but-"

"My apologies, then," Bilbo said, and started on his feet, ready to go, when she spoke sharply.

"This was a pleasure."

"I," he said, looking at her, both startled and jumpy.

"I think it might be nice if you came for any explanations you might need," she said firmly, tone gentling. "I am certainly not as busy as the Lord Balin, and I think your- gaggle- might have some troubles explaining things, and it won't do to have the Consort ignorant of such matters." A brief hesitation, then: "Only, I've one request."

"What is it?" Bilbo asked warily.

Sifa's hands tightened convulsively, and she looked regretful; but her voice did not waver. "Do not ask to become Queen."

He flinched, waving his hand wildly. Before he could find words, however, she spoke, and while her words were not kind, her tone softened the blow a little.

"Thorin Oakenshield is enamored of you, and he is, also, in debt to you. He threatened you, Master Baggins, when you sought to save him, and he holds himself craven for that." Her eyes were dark with some memory, and her words darker yet: they struck at something inside Bilbo like tolling bells. "If you ask it of him, whether on a dare or some other desire, he will grant it. He will fight an entire mountain, and it scarce matters who wins that battle: the price is too high. So. To you, as wergild for offering information, I name this price."

Bilbo floundered for a moment. Sifa waited him, patiently, face as immovable as carves granite.

"It's yours," Bilbo said. Then, unable to help himself, "I thought I told you to call me Bilbo."

Sifa nodded, once, and the shadows fled from her face as if they'd never been. "Apologies," she said. "I thought there was a need for formality in the moment."

"Dwarves," he muttered under his breath, "unable to hold off on majestic _rudeness_ for even half a second!"

She looked amused once more, and Bilbo realized he might not have spoken as softly as he thought- but she only said, "If I am to call you by your given name, then it is only proper that you drop all honorifics of mine. Please, call me Sifa." And then, before he could respond properly, she stood and gathered a stack of books from a nearby stool, and sketched a sort of bow. "I do have to hurry for this- I'm almost an hour too late- so I hope to see you soon, Bilbo."

She left the door open and left.

Bilbo looked at the carefully decorated room that looked almost uninhabited, and the tea that tasted nothing like what he brewed in the Shire, and the stacks of books around the desk that held no dust, and he smiled slowly, delicately, like a solstice dusk over Tookborough, and he left.

…

Dís was in the process of calling her sons to breakfast when she came across Thorin in the hallway.

"Have you seen either Fíli or Kíli?" She asked.

Thorin was muttering something under his breath as he did the buttons of his waistcoat up, and he looked both tired and happy, in the strange mix that she hadn't seen on his face ever before.

"No," he said, and went back to mumbling, walking away from her.

Dís rolled her eyes and turned the corner, just in time to meet Bilbo, coming from his rooms.

"Have you seen my sons?" She asked him, perhaps a bit too sharply.

Bilbo, shrugging on his waistcoat, paused. "They headed out to breakfast almost an hour ago. Something about training with Dwalin?"

Dís swore. "I delay my own breakfast to bring them, and they've not the kindness to await me. I don't know where I went wrong!"

Bilbo laughed, and said, "Well. I'll accompany you there, if you'll accept the substitution."

"A far better substitution than expected," Dís said dryly, and Bilbo laughed once more, full-bodied.

They'd almost left the corridor when they heard a muffled thump from behind them. Dís and Bilbo exchanged looks, and they turned as one to the right: towards the royal family's rooms.

"What-" Bilbo began, only to cut off at Dís unsheathing her sword.

It'd been a soft sound, but assassins were not unheard of, and Dís would much rather face the cowards who dared to enter the royal family's quarters like thieves in the night by herself- hadn't her kin faced enough already?

Plus, she was irritated, and would dearly like to sharpen her blade on some deserving person's throat.

Her quarters were empty, and Thorin's, next to hers, were as well, which meant the thieves were in her sons' rooms, and she felt cold rage flicker through her veins and her hand tighten on her sword, almost to the point of pain.

She threw the door open, revealing no weapon-bearing dwarf.

Only Sifa, who had gone pale at the sight of her and paler at the sight of the sword.

Sifa, who was _in her sons' rooms._

"What are you doing here?" Dís forced out through clenched teeth, stepping in. She saw the scroll in Sifa's hands, and she asked, flat and sharp, once more, when Sifa did not answer: "Why are you in my sons' rooms?"

Sifa's eyes darted to Bilbo, behind her, and then to Dís' face. "I wished to speak to them," she said calmly, and that irritated Dís more than almost anything else.

"Why?" Dís asked coldly.

"Are you their keeper?" Sifa retorted. "I've committed no crimes, Princess Dís. They've no complaint to my presence here."

"So they know you're here," Dís said, and Sifa looked startled. "My sons consort with elves and disgraced dames. At least Kíli _tells_ me when he does such things. My other son hides it!"

"I will not defend them," said Sifa, still with that damnable politeness. "They are your sons, and make their own choices. And, as I've told you: they are heroes, and are full-grown. They will do as they wish." She sketched a courtly bow brittly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going."

She was at the door when Dís grabbed her arm tightly.

"Let go of me," she said lowly, eyes bright and suddenly furious.

"Do not come near my sons," Dís said, just as quietly. "Or shall I tell them what you are?"

" _Who,"_ said Sifa, yanking her arm away, and stumbling slightly. Her chin was firmed, however, and her bearing remained dignified. "I am a dwarf, no matter what else. And until your brother banishes me, Princess, I remain such."

"Just barely," she reminded. Then, unable to help herself, Dís said, " _Kinslayer."_

Sifa recoiled, and she looked as struck by that as she'd done decades previous, shaken and broken by it.

But then she recovered, and her face turned cold: a mask, perhaps, but a good one.

"I am-" Sifa's voice cracked, and she turned her face away, and then looked back at her. Tears stood out in her eyes, but her voice was as sharp as broken blades. "-no kinslayer. I've never raised steel to my blood, and you've no _proof._ I am a dwarf of Erebor, and I'm a noble one at that. Say what you will, Princess Dís. Tell your sons, and tell your king, and tell the people, if that is your wish. I did what was necessary, and- and I would do it again."

She scrubbed a hand across her eyes and sent her a fierce look, once more, before turning and walking swiftly down the hall.

Dís watched her go with a tired heart, and she sighed; at it, Bilbo entered her field of view.

"Kinslayer?" He asked carefully.

"It is not a tale meant for ears such as yours," Dís said abruptly, and strode away before the flare of regret at her sharp words could make her go back and apologize to him.

…

Fíli had not seen Sifa all day, and that worried him: she had said she'd bring a copy of the treaty she and Tauriel had almost finished drafted, and Sifa hadn't, despite a propensity for punctuality that he'd never seen falter.

And then there was the awkward way Bilbo moved, like he was aborting little gestures towards either himself or Kíli; and the stiff, locked posture of his mother, which spoke of a cold, deep anger he hadn't seen since they'd had to beard the treasurer who'd been skimming off the top of gold that was already scarce enough in Ered Luin.

But Fíli was busy, and he was unable to truly do as he wished; the meetings for the Meeting of the Three Kings were getting longer and more important, for they had just less than a fortnight to get Erebor ready for such an endeavor. It took him that evening, to finally corner Bilbo and get an explanation.

 _She- your mother and Sifa- said a lot of things,_ Bilbo told him, hands fluttering nervously around his sides. _But Dís wanted her to stay away from you. And she wouldn't really explain why. It was all very confusing._

Fíli went hunting for Sifa.

She wasn't in any of her usual haunts. Not the library, or her rooms, or Tauriel's, or his own; not the taverns or even mines.

Fíli swore under his breath, and continued to search.

When he did find her it was a stroke of sheer luck: he chose a shortcut to the royal halls and therefore cut through the stone-gardens of an old queen, in which Sifa was hiding.

The gardens were ruined by Smaug and hadn't ever been restored as the rest of the Mountain- likely, nobody cared about decorative stone. Giant stone helmets of statues littered the ground, moss growing over them, lending the entire room an earthy dampness.

The curves of the stone helmets was likely what allowed the sound to carry to him, and Fíli recognized the stifled hiss easily.

He picked his way through the stone carefully, checking the shadowed crevices until he found Sifa, curled into herself and pale in the hollow of a helmet.

Fíli didn't say anything, but rather reached for her, pressing fingers to the chilled flesh.

Too long to tell after that, she uncurled, and reached for him as well, blunt nails digging into the inside of his arm.

"What did my mother say to you?" He asked quietly.

Sifa inhaled sharply, and though she stiffened she also shifted closer to him.

"Nothing I did not expect," she murmured. "It was a long time coming, and- unsurprising. But I hadn't expected her to be so blunt, I think; and I've not heard such accusations in a long time."

"What accusations?"

For a long moment, he thought she might answer, but Sifa only shook her head and said, dully, "Not right now."

Fíli sighed. Time for a new tack, then. "Bilbo told me she told you to stay away from me."

"Yes," Sifa said.

"That you both said a lot of things."

"Yes."

"Don't stay away from me," he told her, and some long-hidden inheritance from his mother's blood emerged, making it an order. "I couldn't bear it if you- weren't there."

"Don't," Sifa said, sharply, twisting so she could meet his gaze. "Don't you dare say that, Fíli. You've walked for eight decades and more without me, and you'll do it for longer if needed. The paths we've chosen are lonely. I'll not bargain your soul in my desires, and you better not bargain mine in yours."

Fíli sighed, once more, and gathered his arms around her. "I wouldn't," he promised her, lacing their fingers together. "But." And, suddenly, his tongue felt heavy with the weight of long-held-back words rising up. "I would like to walk beside you, for as long a time as you'd permit."

"That has to be the most back-asswards proposal I've ever heard of," Sifa told him, staring. She looked more relaxed then than she had in the entire conversation. "You've outdone elves in subtlety, let me tell you-"

Fíli shoved her.

"-truly, impressive." Sifa's bark of laughter stopped almost before it began, and she looked at him with a sobriety that made him want to stiffen. "Marriage, hm?" Eyes darted to their laced fingers, and then met his. "I don't want a big fuss of it all."

"A private ceremony?" Fíli asked dryly. He could not hide his smile at her affirmation.

"Yes," she said, and fell silent, tracing the earth pensively. Fíli let her think in peace, and enjoyed the warmth that came from being so close to her, after all this time. After a pause, she spoke: "I would not be averse to doing so tonight."

Fíli choked. "Tonight?"

Sifa turned to him, and her dark skin shone like a golden river-stone, eyes glittering with an anger that he'd never before seen on her face.

"Tonight," she said. "For I know my answer will remain, whether it be now, or tomorrow, or a hundred years hence: to stand beside you in any way possible." The savage emotion playing across her face shifted into one of deliberate calm. "And as I told you, I've secrets that must come out. I suppose this is as good a time as any for some of them."

"Sifa," Fíli managed to say.

Sifa arched an eyebrow. "If you don't want to, all you have to do is say the word."

Fíli looked out over the shadowed garden, and he remembered the fear he'd felt, thinking he'd lose Sifa- he remembered steady warmth and quiet words, and he thought, _I want this._

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

She laid her head back, onto his shoulder, and said, "I love you," so softly he almost did not hear it; and then, she said, louder, "I've a story to tell."

"An important one?" He asked.

"I'm not one to say such things if they are unimportant," she said pertly. Fíli snorted with laughter, and Sifa reached out, brushing his hand. "It is terribly important."

"Very well." He shifted, settling so his spine curved against the stone helmet comfortably. "Go on, then."

Sifa slid out of his arms and knelt before him, back straight and hands on her thighs, in the traditional pose of a taleteller.

"In the First Age," she began, voice turning deeper, richer; melodious as a bass violin, "the Seven Fathers awoke. Six of them together, in the Blue and Red Mountains, and the eldest alone: at Gundabad.

"The three pairs built great halls in the mountains they woke in. But Durin wandered from Gundabad for many years, and when he arrived at last in Khazad-dûm he spent even longer carving the halls as he wished." Sifa's hands sketched through the air like little birds. "He asked for help from his kin, but two pairs were too far to send troops, and the other pair, in the Blue Mountains, was locked in strife against elves. And so, Durin carved the halls of Khazad-dûm alone, and held to his rage."

She paused.

"That's it?" Fíli asked, disappointed.

"Durin's heir went to Erebor to rule, for Khazad-dûm was peaceful and had plenty," Sifa said, ignoring him. "And even as Durin died, his heir ruled over both mountains from Erebor. 'Twas during the heir's lifetime that the War of Wrath happened: 'twas during the heir's lifetime that Nogrod and Belegost were sundered, and destroyed.

"The heir of Durin remembered the callousness of the dwarves of the Blue Mountains, and he did not send them aid, even as they begged. Yet those Firebeards and Broadbeams who could escape those halls did, and they were scattered; kingless. They headed to the halls of Khazad-dûm, and some who abhorred the Longbeards for their uncaring nature turned east, and headed to the Red Mountains. None know if they made it, or perished in the attempt."

Sifa was a gifted storyteller.

"Many came to the halls of the Longbeards, and swore allegiance here. Among them- the last of them- was a single Firebeard, her name lost to history, all that remains the title she was given: _Harasul-zagr."_

"Flamesword," said Fíli.

Sifa inclined her head. "She saw the gold of Erebor, and the riches that it yet held, and she felt a rage as unending as the fires of Mount Doom itself. Her people had begged for help, and for the pride of the heir of Durin it was not answered. And so, as she stood before a kingdom swollen with refugees, she did not yield her sword, or bend knee to the king of the Longbeards."

Hands danced through the air, and Fíli could see the dark gold of Erebor's walls, the young warrior-woman grieving a lost land and incandescent with fury, the gold-encrusted king who turned his back on a people beggared.

"She was the last of the Firebeards, and she held that title with pride," Sifa continued, voice rolling like a terrible boulder, majestic and unstoppable. But then, she went still: hands dropping to her sides limply, eyes tightening. "When Durin's heir founded Erebor, he called it the Proud Mountain." And here, he saw her hands flicker again, the thread taken up once more. "Flamesword, last of the Firebeards, renamed it on that terrible day. She called it the Lonely Mountain, alone in pride and honor, and alone in kin."

"What did she do?" Fíli croaked, though he knew Sifa would answer only as the tale unravelled.

"She saw the dried blood on her sword, and the gold on Durin's chest, and the fear of her companions' beside her, and she said, ' _Curse you, and all your sons. The blood of the Broadbeams, the blood of the Firebeards: it is on your hands, and on your soul. For gold you have held your silence. For gold you have turned your faces. For gold you have allowed your kinsmen to die! If you wish it so much, keep your gold. But know this: the gold you so covet, heir of Durin, shines with the blood of my kin.'_ And so, Flamesword cursed the line of Durin with gold-madness."

Fíli felt his heart pound, and his vision sharpen, and his hands ache for a sword. But there was nothing for it: before him was only Sifa, and a tale he did not even know to be true.

(Nothing, save for a thing in his chest that tightened, and a feeling as if a nameless fear had been shoved into light.)

"Flamesword then left the halls of Erebor, and wandered the world. Inside the Lonely Mountain, however, the heir of Durin went mad. He saw only gold, wished for only gold; his wife and sons wept beside him and begged him to return to them, but there was no answer. Finally, the heir's son rode out, determined to bring some measure of peace to his father's halls. He found Flamesword, and begged from her a boon.

"And she, older and wiser, offered what she could: a ceremony of the soul, to serve as shield against the weight of the deaths." Sifa's eyes sharpened. "An innocent soul, matched to the King. A ceremony called _Ishmerafrân'amrâb."_

The old khuzdul name for marriage vows was _ishmerafrân'mudtul:_ ceremony of the heart. This, what Sifa said, was ceremony of the soul.

"To save the line of Durin," said Fíli. "But Gandalf fixed it. He did _something._ He-"

"Sixty years ago," Sifa said softly, "Iron Hill dwarves entered Erebor and were slaughtered where they stood. It was the last time Smaug was seen, and there are records of a darkness that sank into the air as far as the southern reaches of Mirkwood. A curse, one could say, across the gold of Erebor. But you know as well as I that curses- the longer they stay, the more potent they are. Sixty years and it took a wizard to cleanse it."

"If what you speak is true," he said, "then this is more than six thousand years old."

"Just so."

Fíli sighed, and watched Sifa curl away, relaxing out of the stiff posture of tale-telling.

"Why haven't I heard of it, then?" He asked.

"Because your great-grandfather was a fool and more," she said testily.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." A grim smile played across her lips. "Thrór was a good king, perhaps, but one far too inclined to lead with his heart, and not his mind. After Thrór's father died- King Dain I- Thrór tried to commit an _ishmerafrân'amrâb_ with the dwarf he loved. She was struck down by Mahal for some crime or another. And in a deep despair, Thrór struck down the very ceremony that might have saved his mind." She shrugged. "The _ishmerafrân'mudtul_ was not enough to save his mind. And he did not stop there: he erased every last notation of _ishmerafrân'amrâb_ he could get his hands on. I only found this out through luck."

"Another one of your secrets?" Fíli asked.

Sifa smiled, and said, "Yes." Then, she shuffled forward, eyes bright. "I propose this, tonight: we shall bind ourselves before Mahal, in the _ishmerafrân'amrâb."_

"It is not safe," Fíli said.

"When you left, to reclaim Erebor," retorted Sifa, "was it safe?"

"You can't hold that over my head forever," Fíli warned, but she only arched an eyebrow, and he surrendered. "It isn't me who's in danger. Mahal didn't strike down my great-grandfather, he struck down his _lover._ And you won't gain anything by it. So-"

"It is for Flamesword that we have a Queen," said Sifa, sharply. "For her curse. Because if our kings love another, or love someone unsuited, they can keep their heart and keep their mind as well. But I've taken a vow from you, _redêl:_ that you will never love another. And the price of that vow shall not be your mind, that much I swear to you."

And after that, there was nothing more to be said. Sifa's mind was made up, and Fíli's was as well. They lingered, however, for a long moment: Fíli carding through her hair, relishing a silence that was unweighted with things unsaid.

...

"This is necessary."

"For the blood of kinsmen, aye. You're sure they won't know who it is?"

"They kicked out Gunnig quietly. They don't want this blasted about, I'll tell you that much. Now. Keep your eyes out, when ke comes you just sprinkle it on…"

…

Sifa led Fíli to her rooms and bade him to sit, as she gathered everything necessary for the ceremony.

Somehow, it didn't surprise him that she knew how to conduct it.

And indeed, in a matter of an hour it was over: Sifa turned to him, and led him to a curtained-off area that bore a brazier with a small, cheerful flame curling out of it, and a low pillar to the side that supported a silver platter.

A window, high and narrow, allowed a thin sliver of moonlight to fall down on them.

"What do you want me to do?" He asked.

"Come," she said, and stood before the brazier. Fíli stood across from her, opposite the brazier, and mirrored what she did; as Sifa reached out and crossed her wrists, just over the flame, he did the same.

"I, Sifa, daughter of Glifa, ask for a bond," she intoned, eyes meeting his steadily, "with Fíli, son of Vili. There is blood hewn between us, and sacrifice, and tears." A slow, steady inhale. Fíli could feel her racing pulse through her wrist. "By Mahal's mercy and Kaminzabdûna's grace, by Usahu's compassion, and Mamahdûn's blessing, we shall hold true to the bonds of kinship."

And here, Fíli spoke the words she'd coached him on.

"Aye," he said. "Through fire and hell, distance and exhaustion; we bind ourselves first to the vows we swear here."

Sifa said, voice like the smooth flow of lava, so hot it flowed as liquid, "By fire and stone, through death and beyond, I pledge myself to Fíli, Son of Vili. May the grip of our souls never waver."

Starlight, shining down on them, brightened. The flames rose, a little, and when Fíli looked around them the walls glittered with a thin sheen of ice.

"By fire and stone, through death and beyond, I pledge myself," he echoed, "to Sifa, Daughter of Glifa. May the grips of our souls never waver."

Then she let go of his hands, and took the bracelets he had seen on the platter next to them, and slowly reached out. Fíli held out his wrist, and she flipped open the clasp, slid it on.

It was a little thicker than the ones usually favored by dwarves- less ornamentation, more smooth metal. Though how Sifa thought they could fool anyone with these as _thandmesem-mudtul_ was beyond him. Those bracelets had no beginning and no end, forged by the hands of the bride and groom, labored over for weeks on end.

These couldn't compare.

But, as he watched, Sifa simply reached out and pressed his hand closer to flame. And when she reached out and pinched the clasp between her fingers, it sculpted as if made of clay.

Fíli stared at it in shock.

The brazier was nowhere near hot enough to melt the metal. Even if it was, there ought to be some burns along the rest of his wrist, where the metal was actually touching skin.

There wasn't.

"Mahal's blessing," she said, almost soundlessly.

"Ah," said Fíli, a little weakly. Then he reached forward and took the other bracelet, sliding it on her wrist. Held it close to flame, and pressed the metal clasp together; it was just a little warmer than her skin. It bent like a sort of thick syrup.

With the clasp gone, Fíli took a moment to make the seam of joining a little decorative, and so did Sifa. When he finished, she smiled at him, and took a dagger from the platter, and pressed it into his hand, the one bearing the metal bracelet.

She waited until he had a grip on it, and gently drew it up so it rested on her neck, in the place between pulses. Fíli almost choked, but then felt the chill of steel against his own neck, and froze. Sifa looked stiffer, he thought; not _afraid,_ but unsure.

"When dwarves bind to their _khi_ ," she said softly, "it is a ceremony of their heart, their blood, their life. It is a celebration of joining." She swallowed. "This ceremony is a binding of the soul, and steel, and blood. It is a celebration of equality. But also: _through death and beyond._ There is no end, not after this. For the rest of our lives, we hold a knife to each other's throats." Her eyes were very level. "The tenets of _Ishmerafrân'mudtul_ are love and family and respect. The tenets of _Ishmerafrân'amrâb_ are honor and mercy and _trust,_ and that is why-" she inhaled slowly. "-we hold a knife. Those are dangerous concepts."

Fíli did not move an inch, and said, "Will you kill me?"

"If you bring dishonor on me, on those I term family- I will have no choice." Sifa's hand trembled just a little, and firmed. "If I do it to you, you must end me. It is- the duty of stone. The steadiness. And the honor of flame."

He nodded slowly, and waited; the chilled dagger was gaining the temperature of his flesh, now.

"This is one last chance," she said abruptly, eyes dark and wide and gleaming like silver coins, like stars in a moonless night, "to leave. Slit my throat and go, if that is your wish." And then, in a whisper, "Do not stop your hand for pity, or mercy."

Fíli felt something strange rising up in the room, a faint pressure. Lightning, he thought- the faint scream before the very sky split apart in Usahu's rage. The brazier no longer held a small fire. It _burned,_ white-hot and blazing. The ice edging the walls had thickened, and the starlight was bright enough to rival the sun at noon.

"For love, then?" Fíli challenged, voice steady as a mountain.

Sifa's face softened. "Yes," she said, "that is- a good answer."

Fíli arched an eyebrow, and a faint smile stole across her face. She let her arm drop. Fíli let his fall as well, though he made a point to rub a finger across her cheekbone: Sifa's mouth pursed at that with some emotion similar to resigned irritation.

"We consign these daggers to Mahal's mercy," she said, and stepped forwards, dropping her dagger in the brazier. It shot up three feet, and held its height as Fíli dropped his; as he watched, the fire twisted, and Sifa simply stood there, feeling the heat lash across her face. He did not know what they were waiting for, but-

-the fire winked out.

Sifa beckoned him closer to the brazier, and when he did, Fíli saw that the daggers they' dropped inside- a pale silvered metal- had changed.

He reached out and prodded it, and when it didn't burn his fingers he picked it up. It was heavier, now, with a run in the middle of a deep gold that twisted the balance. Along the hilt were carved runes in a language he could not read.

"What is this?"

"Symbols of our bond," Sifa said. "As bracelets are to those of the _Ishmerafrân'mudtul,_ these are to _Ishmerafrân'amrâb._ As I said- this is no soft thing."

"Danger," murmured Fíli.

Sifa nodded. Then, deliberately, she knelt.

"The Valar have witnessed the binding ceremony as pleaded," she announced. Her hands lifted, sketching something in the air that Fíli couldn't identify but recognized as Iglishmêk. "As pledged, the troth is fulfilled. I beg of them to hold true to such bindings until the rightful moment of death."

For a moment, nothing happened.

But then ice suddenly melted away, and starlight faded, and the very earth under their feet relaxed. Fíli felt a tight knot in his chest relax.

When he looked, however, Sifa trembled in front of the brazier, and wasn't moving- her hands were flat against the ground, and she looked as if a breeze could topple her.

Fíli knelt beside her and said, "Sifa?"

Sifa wrapped herself around him as if seeking the warmth, and stroked a hand over his back. "I am- what did we _do?"_ She asked, and Fíli laughed, because he didn't know either: only that they'd walked into fire and come out unscathed, and he knew enough of such things to be grateful for it.

"I don't know," he mumbled into her hair. "I don't _know,_ Sifa, I think we were stupider than Kíli at midsummer festivals. I-"

"Before Mahal himself," she gasped through her laughter. "Oh, Vala have mercy, we called them before us to pledge ourselves!"

"I know," he said, and wondered if he'd ever want to leave her arms. "I know, _khebbêl,_ I know."

Sifa sighed. "Come, then. We've much to do tomorrow, and it's later than I'd hope." She led him to her bed, and he tilted a look at her, which she steadily ignored.

"I don't sleep well with others beside me," she told him blandly, and he arched an eyebrow. "Apparently," she said, just as inflectionless, "I've a tendency to kick."

"I'll sleep as far from you as possible then," he said, and she gentled her look.

"I told you I would not offer you anything more than children in bed," she said, half-gentle and half-sharp. "And, if necessary, the safety of my arms. Now: sleep, Fíli. Tomorrow will be a long day indeed, and we'll need our rest."

Fíli smiled.

Under the covers, after the candles had been blown out, Sifa shifted slightly, and said, " _Khebbêl?"_

"You set fire to metal," Fíli said, dryly. "I think you deserve the name."

Her laughter was loud, and rambunctious, and had they any neighbors he might have worried about them. As it was, he only wrapped an arm around her waist and grinned into the curve of her neck, and fell asleep.

…

Fíli awoke, feeling the faint warmth of another in the bed before he'd truly reached consciousness. He shifted sleepily, and felt the chill of metal dig into his wrist. He awoke, sharply.

Sifa had not lied- she did not sleep easy. Even now, she was curled half-away from him, tucked in on herself like an unstrung bow. In sleep, everything about her was softened- the sharp twists of her hair were crimping, and her usually-severe expression was relaxed. Her mouth was open, just a little.

"Sifa," he murmured.

She stirred, and blinked; he could see the exact moment when she remembered the previous night. "Morning," she said, and he saw her eyes widen further when she realized the time.

"We're late," she bit out to him, and swung away.

Fíli sighed. So much for a lie-in the night after their wedding.

It wasn't as if the sun had even risen yet.

But by the time it did, they needed to be in the throne room, and they needed to be ready to prove that what they'd chosen wasn't just a child's desire. And they needed a set of lies ready if anyone asked them questions about the _Ishmerafrân'mudtul_ they'd apparently gone through with.

He wrinkled his nose and got to work.

By the opening of the court, they both were ready. Sifa looked, at least, mostly normal; she wore a gown of light grey, dark hair braided back with pearls of the same shade, and an overcoat of ermine. She looked cold, and regal, and as immovable as the mountains themselves.

Fíli wore Durin blue, and thought that when they stood together they looked like a storm waiting to happen.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes," said Fíli, and lifted his chin.

…

They walked into the throne room, side by side.

It was a good thing they'd come this early: there weren't many people. Thorin sat on his throne, and Bilbo beside him- it'd taken some finagling before Bilbo, despite not being Consort yet, had been allowed to sit so close to the King.

Fíli could see Bilbo's surprise, and his Uncle's as well.

It was rare, after all, for any of their family to approach in such a formal manner over something still undiscussed in private.

He managed a blank face until they were ten feet from the throne, though he couldn't help the flash of relief when he knelt and could hide his face. Sifa had stopped five feet behind, perfectly positioned as proper nobility.

"My King," he began, head bowed, words scraping along his throat, "I come here to beg your forgiveness."

" _Grovel if necessary,"_ Sifa had told him as they walked. " _But do not, ever_ lie. _And let me do most of the talking. After you've said your piece, of course."_

"For what?" Thorin asked.

Fíli raised his head. "In the recklessness of youth, I have committed myself to a venture you might not agree with." He swallowed. "But I assure you, it has been the deepest of my wishes, and one of my only regrets, since before leaving Ered Luin. I-" He broke off, and reminded himself that he had been blessed by the Maker himself.

"Uncle- King- the night before- I and Sifa, Daughter of Glifa, were bound before Mahal."

A long, frozen silence. The courtiers who were there were staring at him, and Uncle was slowly growing purple. He glanced behind him to see Sifa's lips twitch.

Before Thorin could burst, however, Bilbo laid a hand on his arm and murmured something. Thorin's rage dissipated, a little, and he nodded; after a moment, Bilbo leaned back.

"Uncle-"

"I would speak to your wife, Fíli," Thorin boomed, and Fíli shut his mouth with a snap.

He turned a little to look at her, but she was already moving.

Steady, gracefully. Her face was very pale, but he did not think anyone would recognize the fear simmering under everything else. The cold, proud mask on her face had so few cracks.

And she did not kneel, when she came level to his side. She reached up, and undid the button of her overcoat, and let it drop; in the early-morning light of the throne room, her right wrist shone with the cool metal. Then, she dropped to her knees.

"Your Majesty," she said into the silence.

Thorin arched an eyebrow. "So you are the one my nephew has pledged himself to."

"We are pledged to each other," she murmured. Her chin rose the tiniest fraction, and he could see the stubborn look in her eye: she would do something stupidly noble, Fíli realized with a distant sort of horror, and there was no way he could stop her now. "Your Majesty- Fíli was being, perhaps, kind when he introduced me. For while I am the daughter of Glifa, and Heir to her line, you might know me by another's deeds."

Oh, no. No, no, _no._ Fíli wanted to run from this wreckage, as long and hard as he could. Sifa would not stop, and neither would Thorin, and this was going to be very, very ugly.

"I am Sifa," she said softly, "only daughter of Korl."

Fíli saw the exact moment when Thorin realized who she was. The split-second moment of betrayal, and disgust, and then horror- Kíli might love an elf, but at least he did not love a daughter of a banished, branded, _honorless_ thief.

Sifa bore her king's mistrust and revulsion without turning a hair.

"Give me one reason not to throw you out of these halls right now," he snarled at her.

Sifa's hand, bearing the metal that was their marriage vows, clenched. "You will throw your heir out, as well," she said coolly. And lest Thorin make anymore threats: "Or drive him mad."

"What is to say you haven't done that already?"

"Do you think I have that power, Majesty?" Sifa sounded amused. Or, not exactly- but not grave, either. Walking a fine balance.

Thorin glared, as if he knew that. "I know that you are the daughter of thieves and betrayers."

She sobered fast. "Yes," she murmured. "Indeed. What do you remember of that night, Majesty? That night, when you found out what my father did. Or was yet to do, I suppose."

"I remember darkness and rage," Thorin said levelly. "I remember the pain of betrayal, and casting out a man who was not worth the dirt on my feet." His gaze shifted. "Which is why, when his _daughter_ pledges herself to my _Heir-"_

"Have you never wondered how you found out?" She asked quietly.

Fíli froze. He looked at her, and then at Thorin, who was staring intently at her, and then back at Sifa, who was gazing steadily back.

"I have," he said. "But there was never any proof of anyone's presence in my rooms. The news- just appeared."

"It is interesting," mused Sifa, "how easily a female-stripling can go where she wishes, and nobody ever remembers her."

 _No,_ thought Fíli. _No, you_ didn't. _He was your father!_

"Are you saying-" began Thorin.

Sifa's face went cold, and still. "Yes. He was my father, and I loved him, and I knew that he stole." She breathed in, once, deliberately. "But he always took gold, and rarely steel; it was a game, for him to take what ought to be missed but not mourned. Until he saw the Pearls of Kartul and desired them from the depths of his soul, and would not be swayed from it." Her sharp, lovely eyes swept over him, met Bilbo's, dipped away. "He was not himself at the end of that. And so, when he attempted to take what he wished from Ered Luin's treasury, I told him to stop. And when he did not, I went to one who would."

Thorin was surprised- Fíli could read it in his face, though he thought Sifa could not.

"You turned aside your own father?" He asked, dangerously mild.

Sifa spread her hands. "The dwarf you banished," she said steadily, "was not my father."

 _Oh,_ thought Fíli, inches away from reaching for her and yanking her out of the room. _Sifa-_

"His blood flows through your veins," said Thorin. "And if you were the one who turned him in to me, there are those who would name you Kinslayer for that: for surely he is dead, with none to stand by him."

Sifa looked up at him, and her face was so empty Fíli almost did not recognize her.

"He is dead to me," she said quietly, so quiet that Thorin likely did not hear her. Louder, she said, "For four decades I have kept my silence on this, for it was my own business, and none other's. But it might be time for me to say more, now that it is known what I have done." Sifa inhaled, hands steady on the ground, and when she looked up there was such a proud dignity in her face that Fíli felt chills down his spine.

"Thrice before he left for the Pearls I begged him to stay," she said, eyes glittering. "Thrice, and when he did not heed my warnings I went to one who would listen. And is there anything more of an _anaburhel_ than a plea, than someone begging?"

"Thrice you warned him?" Thorin asked slowly.

Sifa said, levelly, "Four times. And after he ran from you, and came to our home, I pleaded with him to leave. So: five times, Your Majesty. I warned my father five times and he heeded none of them, and he was caught and you banished him." She swallowed, hard. "I still have my honor. As my father is disgraced, I have been; but I have not accepted his honor as my own, and I never will." She bowed her head. "I hope you shall give Prince Fíli what he wishes for, Majesty. He loves you, and you are well-deserving of that. And this is perhaps the least of what is owed him."

She stood, and pressed a cool hand to his shoulder, and left.

Fíli closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he saw the expression on Thorin's face: sharp, and raw, like the bloody edge of a blade.

"I know something of such desire," he said, lips pursing. He looked over at Bilbo, who couldn't have looked more pitying if he tried. "This was what Dís wished to speak to me of, was it not?"

"Most likely," Fíli agreed wearily. "Though she didn't know of the marriage."

"She knew about the Kinslaying," Bilbo broke in. When they turned to him, he frowned. "She mentioned it, yesterday. Though I don't think she knew that Sifa was- innocent."

"Of course not," Fíli said flatly. "That would make my life too easy."

Thorin sighed. "You didn't talk to me, or to your mother, or to anyone else about this. Marriage is- it is _not_ something you can just decide one morning and go through with." He looked so _disappointed-_ Fíli felt his heart shrivel in his chest. "It is the work of forty year-olds, not someone of your age!"

"It would not have mattered, what you said," Fíli replied, after a long pause. "Our minds were made up. And… Uncle. Our love: it is not one for the ages. I know this. Sifa knows this. We are not battle-wed, as you and Bilbo, or eternal romantics, as Kíli and Tauriel- we are ourselves. We built our love, did you know? For decades. It's not something we decided just because we felt like it last night, it's been building for almost forty years. So maybe we won't have lays written about our courting; maybe our love is not worthy of it. But- but. It is still _love."_

Thorin waited, and then his face creased in lines that were either of laughter or anger: even Fíli wasn't sure.

"I've heard it told that Kíli is similar to Dís," he said. "But never have I seen her so clearly in either of you."

Fíli waited, still kneeling, and Bilbo said, irritably, "Oh, get up, Fíli, you look ridiculous. And your knees must be aching something fierce for how long you've been there."

"Thank you," Fíli said, getting to his feet and bowing gallantly, " _Uncle."_

"Don't push it," Bilbo warned, and Fíli laughed; he gestured to the door, and Thorin waved him away.

"Go," he said, and it was a gentler tone than Fíli'd ever heard from him.

…

Kíli sighed. "They're so _weird."_

Because Fíli and Sifa _were._ They were as coldly formal as they had been before, flittering about each other's spaces and never providing any sort of physical contact- he'd seen Sifa touch Fíli's wrist, once, and hold his hand another time, and that was all.

Tauriel arched an amused eyebrow. "Says the dwarf who chose an elf."

"They just married," he said disbelievingly. "They're not supposed to be able to keep their hands off each other. And they aren't _touching._ What the hell's their problem, really?"

"Maybe they're really private," she replied.

They were sitting together in Kíli's room- the one that, until a week ago, had housed both him and his brother. But Fíli had all but moved into Sifa's rooms in the Outer Wing, and so Kíli had the room- ostensibly- to himself.

"Maybe," Kíli said dubiously.

He'd taken a big tray from the kitchens, loaded with all the vegetables he could find. Bombur's face when Kíli'd told him what he wanted had been a cross between disgusted and romantically sappy: he clearly admired Kíli's dedication to wooing Tauriel, even if he felt sorry for the fact that he had to do so in such a manner.

"Why does it matter to you?" Tauriel asked finally, picking through the plate. "I can't imagine you'd enjoy seeing them kiss each other all the time."

"No, but I'd like to know my brother was happy," Kíli shot back and plucked a handful of leaves off the plate.

In the process of putting them in his mouth, he felt a whiff of something that sent him hacking: bittersweet, burning in the back of his throat.

Children in the Blue Mountains were taught a myriad of rhymes, mostly depending on the profession of their parents. Miners had their gem-poetry, cooks their stew-songs, scribes their history-tales.

But all children were taught the healer's rhymes.

And queensfoil was as deadly a poison as kingsfoil was a healer. All children knew it, and knew to avoid it: thin vines spreading across the mountainsides, leaves as round as circles, flowers a pale purple. Eaten raw they led to sore throats and body aches, but once boiled they were- deadly. There was no cure.

Kíli was going lightheaded just from the fumes. Pushing through the dizziness, he forced himself to look at Tauriel-

Adrenaline surged through him.

Because Tauriel had _eaten_ it.

"Are you-" He bit his lip, and the slight pain grounded him. "Are you- okay? Tauriel?"

"I'm fine," she said, looking alarmed. "Are you?"

" _Queensfoil,"_ he said sharply, but Tauriel only stared, uncomprehending. "They added queensfoil to the food. It's- it's a poison. We've got to-"

"I'm fine, Kíli," Tauriel said, running a hand over his shoulder soothingly. "Why don't you take a deep breath, and- okay, maybe don't do that-" as Kíli breathed in and promptly broke out in body-racking coughs.

She muscled him away, dragging him to the outer room with less finesse and more brute strength. Kíli choked halfway there, but Tauriel didn't stop; she just kept on it until they were far enough for Kíli to breathe properly.

"Queensfoil's a good seasoning," she said, after he stopped coughing. "Though I suppose it's poisonous to dwarves?"

"When boiled, there's no cure," Kíli rasped.

Tauriel nodded, slowly. "So, this was the second attempt, then. It's a good thing they didn't pay much attention to elvish physiology."

Kíli stared at her for a long minute, a sickening feeling building in the pit of his stomach. His hands clenched, and he knew his eyes had widened: fury, he recognized in his veins, and a fear so deep he felt as if he was breathing queensfoil fumes once more.

"We're leaving," he said.

Tauriel arched an eyebrow. "We've spoken of this before, have we not? I'm not going anywhere."

"We can't _stay,"_ Kíli snarled. "They tried to kill you. And almost succeeded in doing that to me. I'm not putting you in danger just because I've got some _people_ here who're murderous _idiots_ and-"

"And," she said, tone slowly getting colder, "I've told you that I'm not leaving."

"Yes, you _are."_

"Then you'll have to drag my dead body from these stones," Tauriel said, eyes hard.

Kíli breathed in sharply, and let the cold air ground him. "Fíli can get you justice. You don't have to actually, physically, be present for that to happen."

"No," Tauriel said, and it was with the same tone Thorin got, the same hard-headed, foolish one-

Infuriated beyond words, fear pulsing in his lungs like a living creature, Kíli shouted, "Did you think your mother wanted this?"

…

Tauriel felt the words like a slap across her face.

Kíli _knew_ what had happened to her mother. He knew, because Tauriel had told him, because she'd trusted him with the oldest secret she held, because she'd gifted that to him.

There was something obscene about using that against her.

And Kíli did not _stop._

"Her only daughter, dead under the mountain, just because she's too prideful to do anything else about it- don't you want to see the stars? We can do-"

"My mother has been dead for six centuries," she said glacially. Kíli's face shifted into something approaching regret, but Tauriel was too far gone to stop. "I've stopped living for her approval sometime around reaching hundred. So: the next time you want me to do something for you, _dwarf,_ make sure you talk to me about it and not my _dead mother!"_

" _Dwarf?"_ Kíli asked. "So the fact that I've given you my family-protection means nothing to you?"

"Not when you use my history against me!"

"I won't let you die!" He shouted.

Tauriel clenched her fists. "That is not your choice," she said lowly. "That has never been your choice, Kíli, and I am sorry that you ever thought it. But there is _nothing_ you can do _._ This is my wish, my desire, and if I die I will die with head held high because I died for _justice."_

Kíli went white.

"Do you think I could bear seeing that?" He asked desperately.

"You will have to," Tauriel said implacably.

He surged to his feet, eyes red and raw. There was something so wild in his face- for the first time, Tauriel felt a flicker of fear at the sight of him.

"You know how it feels to see a loved one die for you," he whispered. "You know, Tauriel, you told me: _eyes cold as coins._ You saw your mother, your father. How can you do this to _me?"_

Something broke inside of Tauriel's chest. She felt it like a punch, like broken ribs puncturing lungs: it hurt to breathe.

She shoved him away, hard enough that he stumbled.

"I am not the one betraying trust," she said, and it was as close as a warning as she could get.

Kíli did not heed it.

"Your mother would have-"

"She would have wanted me to do what was needed to find justice," Tauriel forced out, at the end of her patience. "She would have wanted me to survive, yes, but not at the price of my honor. And if you don't understand that, Kíli, then there is no reason for us to stand together."

A throat cleared from the door, and both of them turned as one to see Fíli, face shadowed and grim.

"Am I interrupting something?" He asked.

Tauriel paused, looking at Kíli- but he only stared at her with raw eyes.

"Okay," said Fíli stepping into the room. "Alright. I'll say this, then, to you, Tauriel: if you're not going to stand next to Kíli, there's no place in Erebor for you. If you mean what you just said, then go- we won't hold it against you."

 _No home save the steel in your spine,_ said a monster, and Tauriel believed him for the first time in centuries.

"Thank you," she said tonelessly, bowing with all the formality she knew from Thranduil. "I will."

And she left.

…

Kíli stood in a room stinking of queensfoil and fear, and he thought, _this is the end,_ and did not know it to be a prophecy or a promise.

…

Tauriel did not know where she went, only that she wished to run as long and as far as she could. She was not sure if she could bear some stranger seeing the tears in her eyes, or the pain she could not fold away: there were many things she could withstand, but this last indignity was impossible to bear.

At last, she emerged into a hollowed room that was damp and dark. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine herself back in Mirkwood, under forest boughs and treading through forest mulch.

Her shoulders trembled.

And then, there came a touch, like a campfire after rain: so faint she thought she could almost imagine it, but solid in a way no imagination could conjure.

Eyes flicking open, she went for a knife-

"Tauriel," said Sifa.

No fear; just an earthed calmness that steadied something inside of Tauriel. She slumped back, against the rock wall.

"Please go away," she managed to say.

Sifa didn't listen to her and stepped closer- her hands swept over Tauriel's shoulders, and then she sat down, far enough that she didn't feel crowded but close enough to ensure that Tauriel knew of her presence.

"Kíli can be an idiot," she said, eyes so intent on Tauriel she could almost feel the heat. "And so can Fíli. Both of them are so single-minded, they forget that what they want is from people. And you can't bully people into doing what you want just because you want it."

"He's a _child,"_ Tauriel said hoarsely. "I thought- I thought we could- I don't even know. But I love him. And I tried to tell him I trusted him, and he threw that in my _face._ As if I don't know manipulation when I see it."

Sifa hummed. "Occasionally, their familial tendency to insert foot in mouth comes up," she said wryly. "I'm not defending them- Mahal knows they've got little enough to stand on- and I don't think you need me to rephrase their arguments. But you should know that whatever the two of them say in the middle of a fight: don't ever take that seriously."

"I- Fíli banished me. I'm not sure if I can-"

"Fíli," Sifa said witheringly, "suffers from the same disease as Kíli. The second he sees his brother in any pain whatsoever he runs to his rescue, damn all the consequences. It isn't your fault, Tauriel. Not that, at least."

"I cannot breathe," Tauriel whispered, and Sifa fell silent. "I- I didn't tell anyone what happened, what I _did,_ for so long, and then I tell Kíli and he just- I can't _breathe,_ Sifa."

Sifa was quiet for a moment longer, and then she reached out and gripped Tauriel's wrist, unerring even in the darkness. Abruptly, she spoke.

"A week before I was to become of age, my father saw the Pearls of Kartul." Tauriel frowned, and Sifa said, "Listen to me. It might not help you, but it will not hurt."

Tauriel still felt the tickles of panic in the back of her throat. She wanted to run, and run hard, but where could she go? She pushed it back and nodded slowly.

"He was no nobleman- his only claim to it was through my mother, who was some cousin to Blacklock royalty. But he desired those pearls as he'd never desired anything, and he wanted them so badly he decided he'd take them."

Tauriel swallowed over a dry throat. "What did he do? As a profession?"

"Nothing," Sifa said, and laughed lightly. "He was a thief, truly: he caught my mother's eye when she was visiting, and they eloped a few days later. Much like I did with Fíli, in fact." After a pause, she continued, "I begged him not to take the pearls. There are many things that can be forgiven under our laws, but taking such a thing- there would be no mercy."

"Were they of such importance?"

"Not for money were they important," she said. "But they were amongst the only things saved from Smaug, when he came, and so were a promise to the people of Ered Luin. Had anyone taken it, it would be construed as taking the people's hope. _That_ is a grave crime, indeed."

Tauriel felt the sweep of Sifa's thumb over her wrist- it grounded her, in the present. Elves never touched so freely, treating every brush of skin as if it was a great gift; but perhaps that was because they had the time, to do such a thing. Dwarves had no such guarantees.

"Anyhow," Sifa went on, carefree in such a manner that spoke of deliberate fury. "I begged him not to, when he told me what he desired, and he did not listen to me. I begged, and threatened, and did all I could- but then, I was barely forty, and that I did all that is surprising enough. My father did not listen- of course not, he'd not be a Longbeard if he wasn't stubborn- and so I sent a letter to Thorin, telling him what would happen." She snorted, faintly. "Believe it or not, I actually just forgot to sign the damn letter. It wasn't that I wanted to hide- it slipped my mind. And by the time the whole ruckus was going on and I found out what happened, it was a bit too late to just tell everyone what I'd done."

"I know something of that," Tauriel murmured.

Sifa's teeth glittered in the dim light, but when she spoke her voice was grim. "Thorin banished my father, and my mother- my mother just fell apart. She scarcely ate; her hair fell out; there was nothing I could do for her. So about a month after my father was banished, I sent a raven to her family among the Blacklocks, and she left, and I never heard from her again."

"That must have been painful."

"It was," Sifa said.

Tauriel tried to picture that: a proud young dwarf, sharp-edged and helpless under her father's greed, deciding that it was more important to do her duty than to avert her eyes. A young dame, seeing her father's banishment and then losing her mother, as well, and surviving that only to face a mountain's scorn.

There was a grief to that, she thought. A tragedy, like her own.

It spurred her tongue.

"When I was twelve," Tauriel began, soft as summer dawn, "my parents set out to travel, and took me with them. They were the kind of people who were never happy in a single place. We call such elves _lasbelingwaew:_ autumn wind."

"Wanderers," Sifa murmured.

Tauriel inclined her head. "Just so. My father was a warrior in the Mirkwood army, but he was a dancer, before he ever held a sword: his brother always said he danced like a Lothlórien wind."

"His brother?" Sifa asked.

"He was only a few years older than me," Tauriel told her. "Not old enough to take me in, when my parents died, but he remembers them better."

"And your mother?"

"Tirnel," said Tauriel. "She taught me to star-walk. Her hair was the shade of a fox's tail, and her eyes were like fallen stars. I…" She paused, and felt the old grief rise up inside her chest. "I've my father written across my skin- my eyes are from him, and so is my temper- but my mother: there is nobody in all the world who will ever remember her."

"They will remember her name," Sifa pointed out, gently. "Tirnel, of Mirkwood, mother of the only elf to ever live under the Lonely Mountain."

Tauriel laughed, at that, and wondered, wildly, if her mother would have smiled to see her daughter's antics, or if she'd turn her face away in shame.

"We were on a trip to Thranduil's castle," Tauriel said, taking up the thread of the narrative once more. "We'd heard of the spiders, but my mother wished to be inside the city by the star showers in summer, so we left. And on the way, we were attacked."

She'd never told anyone these stories save Kíli. They were the rotten core at the heart of her soul, as Tauriel had always known it to be: something hollow inside of her that would never be fulfilled, something broken inside of her that would never be healed.

"My mother told me to stay quiet," she went on, hands twitching and unable to stop the ingrained flinch. "I- didn't."

Sifa did not move, save for the slow sweep of her hand over Tauriel's. Carefully, deliberately calculated to ensure Tauriel wasn't overwhelmed.

"I screamed," Tauriel whispered, and for a moment she was back under wooden branches, seeing a giant spider for the first time in her life, so frightened she hadn't even heard herself. But then the memory flickered away, and all that was left was a cold stone room, damp and dark, comforting in a way she'd never imagined it could be.

"My mother died immediately. My father didn't escape, but Rarachnor- the king of the spiders- didn't want to kill him: instead, he kept my mother's corpse in front of my father, and… he watched my father die of his grief." She did not try to keep back the hatred rising from her belly, from her spine- the hatred that she had lived on for so long. "I swore, then, to kill Rarachnor. And after my father died, I escaped- took a knife from my mother's body- and ran, and I was found by Thranduil, and I- I trained."

Then Tauriel breathed in, deep enough she felt like she could burst. Her heart jackhammered in her chest, and she had to remind herself, a hundred times: _you left that behind. Rarachnor is dead. You killed him, with your own two hands._

 _Your vengeance is done._

"I went back, when I came of age, to the spider's nest. There, I slew him." Tauriel inhaled, exhaled, and knew the self-flagellation was written across her face. But she could not stop, not now that the last of her truths were being told. "After I killed him- I did not know of what to do."

"And then," Sifa said levelly, "you did."

"...yes," she said, and it was so tired; _she_ was so tired of searching and searching and searching for something to fill the hollowness inside of her, for something to take the place of tired, bitter hate.

"So you became the Captain." Sifa's voice was carefully, curiously inflectionless. "And for six centuries you fought back spiders that took your mother from you. For six centuries, you lived for your hatred."

It was true: it was painfully, heartbreakingly honest.

Before Tauriel could answer, Sifa said, "There are many things you can blame yourself for. But screaming, when seeing the giant spiders of Mirkwood? There is nothing to be faulted in that."

"I was a fool," Tauriel replied wearily.

Sifa said, "You were a _child."_

Tauriel swallowed, hard. "A foolish child, then. But had I not screamed, the spiders would not have known our position. And my mother would not be dead."

"You do not know that," Sifa said. When Tauriel did not answer, she said sharply, "You cannot know that, Tauriel. Your mother might have died anyhow. Or perhaps your father would have, or perhaps you wouldn't have survived, or something even more terrible. Maybe the world would have been a kinder place, but you've done more than your fair share of lightening it: would Mirkwood be as safe as it was had you not been there?" Sifa leaned forward, fully capturing Tauriel's hands in hers. "The answer is no, if you were questioning it."

"Doing something for repentance isn't enough," she said, and yanked her hands away. Gestured at herself. "Do you think this is what a proper elf looks like? I lived for my hatred, Sifa! I killed, and I _drowned,_ and it is only by the grace of the Valar that I have my sanity today! When I saw Kíli, you know what I thought? _If he dies I can survive it._ If Kíli, _Kíli,_ died, then I could survive the blow."

Elvish memory did not fade.

Tauriel remembered, as if it had just happened, the give of chitin under her sword, the twang of string across her arm, the cold, cold hiss: _No home save the steel in your spine. Little-One, did you think you could escape me?_

In her mind's eye, she fired twice, and ducked away from Rarachnor as he lunged.

Black blood smeared across her face, and in his last breath, he cursed her.

 _If you live, it shall be as you wished you had not._

She drew her mother's dagger, and it did not shine at all in the black of the cave of the King of Mirkwood spiders.

 _If I die,_ she promised, _it will not be by your hand._

And then the memory faded. Tauriel shook, and knew her lips were trembling, and if the wrong move was made she would _break_ Eru help her-

"It is not by the grace of any Vala," Sifa said quietly. "Your sanity, Tauriel: it was no gift. It was fought for, and won, and it was a difficult battle, was it not?"

"In a lifetime after," Tauriel said, quiet and aching and hanging onto the world by a thread, "I have not faced something so difficult as that."

"Then _face it,"_ Sifa said. "Face your angers, and your fears, and your joys. You have seen the darkness of the abyss, and you have walked out. You have walked out _alone._ There is something powerful in that, Tauriel. There is something beautiful in that."

Tauriel shuddered. It was the faintest ripple of muscles under skin, but enough for Sifa to feel.

Her voice softened.

"You thought you could survive Kíli's death, and for someone who was so alone for so long- I do not think you can be faulted for that." Sifa exhaled loudly. "We are, none of us, faultless. Selfishness- that is a fault of us dwarves; but do you think elves are immune? When Fíli left on this quest, he did not tell me until the night before. And when he told me, I was so _angry-_ I told him I would not mourn him. It was self-protection as much as it was a statement said in rage. I tell you this, Tauriel: I do not know you half as much as Kíli, or even Fíli. But I see a being proud as any dwarf, and just as kind, and honorable. Perhaps you are not faultless, but that does not mean you are unworthy of love."

Tauriel did not let the tears fall. Her heart ached, though, and she felt some wound spanning her heart knit together, slowly: not healed, not completely, but a beginning at last.

"I will have to remember that," she told Sifa. "'Perhaps you are not faultless, but that does not mean you are unworthy of love.'" Closed her eyes, and felt the prickles across her nose of unshed tears, and _did not let them fall._ "When Kíli goes into another strop, I mean. It will at least silence him."

"Tell him you love him," Sifa said dryly, "and you'll have a persistent shadow for the rest of your days in Erebor. The Durins get rather… _attached_ to majestic declarations."

"I've noticed," said Tauriel, and that seemed to break the last of the tension still hanging between them.

She rose to her feet and shook out her legs- they'd fallen asleep, and the pins and tingles were uncomfortable but not unbearable. Sifa clambered up as well, and as they moved into the corridor, Tauriel felt a hand on her elbow.

Sifa looked both earnest and solemn in the half-light.

"If you wish to leave, there is not a single dwarf in Erebor who will stop you," she said. "Remember that, yes? I am glad this was not enough to chase you away, but Mahal knows the princes are a handful. If it ever gets too much, do what you need to do."

"I'm sure the entire mountain will cheer my absence," Tauriel murmured.

Sifa frowned. "There are many who will be glad to see you gone," she acknowledged. "But not the entire mountain, I think." She knocked her shoulder against Tauriel's side. "You've friends, you know."

"I-" _did not._ Tauriel dredged up a smile, however, and felt the ache in her chest fade a little bit more. "I do not know if I can forgive him his words," she said instead.

"There is nobody asking that of you," Sifa replied.

Tauriel paused, and searched for the words in Westron to make her gratitude known, for certainly Sifa had not been forced to follow her. It had been kindness, nothing more, and it was not the quiet kind of elves but the steady, unbending sort of dwarves.

It still warmed her.

All she could do was encompass her emotion behind the syllables: "Thank you."

Sifa seemed to understand. "Do not stop your hand for pity, or mercy," she said in the rhythmic tone of a quote. "It is what we say in our marriage vows. There is nothing soft inside of us, Tauriel; our Maker hewed us from stone. But that does not mean we cannot love. So: go, if you stay out of pity. But stay, if there is another reason."

Tauriel breathed deep. "I think- I need to see the stars. 'Tis a foolish thing, I know-"

"When I am frightened, I require light," Sifa interrupted. "Fire enough to burn the whole of my rooms down. If stars are to you what fire is to me, there is nothing foolish in it at all. Follow me."

And she spun on her heel and stalked away.

Tauriel let the cold, chill air of Erebor seep into her lungs and held it there for a long moment. She should run, she thought. Run hard, run fast, run until there were leagues between Kíli and herself, leagues between his firemoon-tongue and her own starlit fear.

 _When have you allowed fear to lead you?_

 _Never_ , thought Tauriel, and followed Sifa's impatient stride.

…

Sifa scrubbed a hand across her eyes as she slipped into her rooms, only to be met with Fíli's turned back.

She grimaced.

It took some getting used to, having another person in rooms that had once been private. Not truly unpleasant, just- different.

"You're back," she said.

Fíli turned. "Yes," he said, and there was something in his tone that made her back stiffen. "And where were you?"

"Doing damage control," Sifa replied.

"For what?"

"You," she said flatly. "And your brother."

He paused. "You sound… are you _angry?"_

The disbelieving tone was what truly got her hackles up.

"Let's see, Fíli," she said, shedding her cloak and stepping closer to him. "We decided to go to your rooms to pick up some _papers_ that you claimed were necessary, and instead of actually getting any work done you decided to step between an argument that your brother and his- whatever she is- were going through."

"How is that _my_ fault?" He asked injuredly.

Sifa rolled her eyes. "Fine. Ignoring the fact that your brother can, actually, handle himself- it was a private conversation, it was something you had no right to barge in on, and _Kíli was wrong."_

"Kíli was wrong?" Fíli said incredulously. " _Kíli?_ I warned Tauriel, Sifa! Before everything: _as long as you make Kíli smile, I'll stand by you."_

"And for that, she should accept everything he tells her?" Sifa retorted. "Rather make Tauriel a servant for all that they can love each other! If you interfere every time Tauriel refuses Kíli something, you're ensuring they'll never truly choose each other. So _step back,_ and let Kíli make his own mistakes, and be there to catch the pieces if necessary. But no more than that, yes?"

"He is my brother," Fíli said lowly.

Sifa heroically resisted the urge to bang her head against the wall.

"He is his own person," she snapped. "He is an adult. When he chose the bow, did you spend hours coddling him? You let him walk where he wants, Fíli, or there'll be a day when he doesn't let you walk beside him at all."

There was a long silence, and Sifa turned away; sat down and took the time to undo her braids and her outer coat. The repetitive clink of beads against the wood table, and rasp of hair against her skin felt both mind-numbing and calming.

When she finished, she turned to Fíli and arched an eyebrow. "Well?"

He did not smile, but neither did he look so tense as before. "I should step back," he said, and Sifa let her lips quirk upwards. "Kíli's- I did let him be his own, you know, on the quest. But after the Battle, seeing him on those beds, not knowing if he'd survive… I guess I got worse."

"Understandable," Sifa told him, reaching forward and clasping his hands in hers.

"Yes. Well." Fíli's eyes lit with that familiar Durin determination, and Sifa felt her own instinctive surge of fond exasperation at that. "I'll have to apologize to her."

"Not tonight," she said. "I've just managed to get her to go back to her rooms and not run off into the night screaming about the insanity of Erebor's princes. Maybe give her some time to actually fool herself into believing me?"

"What would I do without you?" He asked, grinning, and Sifa shifted over so she was sitting right next to him, side pressed tight against his.

It was warm, and though she was still irritated about waste of an entire evening, she could not regret that particular moment.

...

Thorin arrived in the hall and headed straight to Fíli, who was looking slightly strangled and pale. Bilbo joined him a moment later.

"What's going on?" He asked Fíli, but before an answer could come, Kíli burst into the room.

"They're down there," Kíli said, and slapped a roll of parchment into Fili's hands. When Fili unrolled it and began reading, Kili turned to Thorin and hissed, " _What did you do?"_

Thorin paused, frowning, and Fili stepped between them, hand tight on his brother's shoulder.

"Kili," he said quietly, and some frenetic tension leaked out of Kili's frame. Fili squared his shoulders and faced Thorin stiffly. "Uncle," he said formally, "did you send this to Sifa?"

Thorin reached out and took the scroll.

 _Your presence is requested,_ it read in the impersonal script of a proper scribe. Beneath it was a spiky scrawl, scribbled in: _the third_ thikil'abnith _mine of the Second Wing._

And under it all was the damning stamp of the King Under the Mountain.

"I didn't send this," Thorin said unsteadily. Looked up, to see the split-second of relief written across both his sister-sons' faces, and felt his heart tighten.

"Thank you," Fili said, bowing his head.

"I will find-" Thorin's hands clenched, tightly, and he fought for control. "I will find who committed this crime, Fili. I promise you."

"I look forward to it," said Fili, eyes so flatly blue

Both of them slipped away, slightly, hands entwining and heads leaning against each other.

Thorin was clearly dismissed. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them Bilbo stood beside him, hand warm on Thorin's. He reached out and gripped his wrist; just tight enough to feel the pulse underneath it.

"Did you hear?"

"Yes," Bilbo said, looking older than ever before. "I'll speak to the boys- soon."

"I cannot-" Thorin cut himself off, and breathed deeply. "This will break them, Bilbo. If their _khi_ dies-"

"Let's not count our chickens before they hatch, alright?" Bilbo asked quietly, pressing his hand over Thorin's.

And then Fili, behind them, suddenly went bone-white. His feet crumpled, and it was only Kili's presence that ensured he did not fall completely. Fili regained control almost immediately, but the fear in his eyes spoke of something deeper than anyone could say.

The fifty or so dwarves in the hall were shooting them all looks, Thorin realized: they were looking for a leader, for someone to step forward into the quagmire of uncertainty and give them something to do.

He straightened, inhaled, on the verge of speech-

\- "Cave in!" Came the call, and Thorin surged forward, to the entrance, before he could stop himself.

"Where?" He demanded.

The head-miner looked pale under a tattooed forehead. "Second mine, Majesty," he said. "We're pulling the rest out now. Too dangerous for exploration, and anyone who's out's going to be out."

"How many fatalities?" Dis asked, appearing next to Thorin, hands laden with scrolls- she must have just come from a meeting.

"We've been lucky, Princess," he said. "We were in the first mine, and when it began shaking we got out. But there was a skeleton crew in the second mine- I think we got them all, but the final reports're still coming in."

"Not all," said Bilbo, quietly. Dis shot him a look, and he murmured, "Sifa and Tauriel were there."

 _"Why?"_ She barked, loud enough to draw attention.

Thorin caught her hand sharply. "Someone sent a note. With my _seal."_

Dis went still. "Your seal-" she began, only to be cut off by a number of dwarves trooping through the entrance, coated with dust and dirt.

And, held between them, was Sifa.

Fili launched himself forwards as soon as he saw her, but Sifa didn't look anywhere near as happy as she should have: her shoulders trembled, and her eyes were overlarge, wide with some sort of horror.

She whispered something in his ear, and Fili recoiled.

Then, loud enough that Thorin could hear, she said, "Take Kili to my quarters. _Now."_

"Yours?" Fili blinked. "But-"

"Closer than yours," she said. "And they're safe enough. Please, Fili. Just- he shouldn't-" she sighed, resting her forehead on his collarbone, and then stepped away. "He shouldn't be here for it. I'll come, I promise, but go. With him, alright?"

Fili paused, and something passed between them, as if an unspoken message.

In a flash, Fili turned away and caught Kili's arm, murmuring low and fast as he guided his brother out the door, half-steering him.

Sifa watched him do so with a slightly haunted edge to her face.

"Lady Sifa," Dis said impatiently, and Thorin wanted to snap at his sister for the first time in decades.

Mahal knew Thorin had no idea what had happened between his sister and his nephew's wife, only that there was a deep, festering anger on Dis' side and- he thought- a deeply wronged anger on Sifa's. But surely, _surely,_ that resentment couldn't stay, not when Sifa still looked on the verge of tears.

It seemed it could.

Sifa knelt, ignoring Dis; her head was hidden for a long moment under a curtain of hair, before she lifted her chin proudly. There was nothing on her face save exhaustion, then: nothing, save a tired bitterness.

"Your Majesty," she said, and the weight across her body lent itself to her voice; the hall fell ominously silent, all the courtiers struggling to hear her. "I- believe you ought to know what happened."

"I would be honored," Thorin said.

Sifa swallowed, hard.

"This morning, we received a missive bearing your seal," she began. "It instructed us to go to the third _thikil'abnith_ mine in the Second Wing. The Lady Tauriel and I were both addressed, and so we both went. But upon arrival the mine was empty. The miners were in the first mine, and there were a few in the second. When we tried to leave, we were attacked." Her hands clawed on the stone floor. "The attackers carried poisoned daggers."

Whispers spread through the hall, though Sifa ignored them with all the skill that she'd ignored Dis.

"Tauriel fought them off, while I attempted to alert the miners of our predicament. Before I could, there was a cave-in in the inner part of the place, and we were cut off. And so we stayed there- the two of us- awaiting the miners' rescue." She inhaled sharply, shallowly. "But Tauriel was injured. She stayed calm enough in the beginning, but it was dark enough that even the best miner could see only blackness. I spoke to her, tried to calm her, but it did not-" she broke off, gritting her teeth.

Bilbo stepped forward and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Do you want to take a break?" He asked kindly, and Thorin half-expected Sifa to nod; but she only straightened further, posture ramrod straight.

"She caused the secondary cave-in," Sifa said softly, voice heavy with tears unshed. "When she did, there was a hole, for a few moments, and I've some stone-sense; I managed to leave."

Bilbo froze, and his hand tightened. "What happened to Tauriel?"

Sifa bowed her head once more, and when she lifted it her eyes were as dry as bone.

"The rocks fell," she whispered, "hard enough to smash a helmeted dwarf's head. For an unarmored elf..."

"Oh," said Bilbo, a little weakly, and Thorin caught his hands tightly, tight enough to bruise.

"Are you saying-" he began.

"Yes," she said quietly, and a tremor marred the perfect line of her shoulders for a brief moment.

"I should tell Kili," Dis began.

Thorin heaved a sigh. It was his duty, his responsibility. The death of the _khi'nututredel,_ even if she hadn't been announced-

"I'll do it," Sifa said. They both looked at her, and she no longer looked anything other than weary, worn down like an old, ragged cloth. "He's in my rooms. I- I was the last to see her. I'll tell him."

There were many times Thorin had said these words. He'd borne the burden of Azanulbizar, and then the Battle; he knew the old, practiced cadence: _I'm so sorry for your loss-_

But this was Kili. This was _Kili,_ the bright, undaunted flame that Thorin had loved as much as he'd feared its passing. This was Kili, and Thorin could not bring himself to break his heart.

He said, "Dwalin and Gloin will stand guard tonight. Lady Sifa- I am sorry."

Sifa bowed her head once more, and said, "Thank you, Your Majesty," and then she left: limping, slightly, and caked in dust, flanked by two large dwarves who made her seem even smaller than what she was.

It was a sad sight.

Beside him, Dis said, "We cannot declare a mourning-day," and Bilbo went _red._

"Why?" He hissed. "Because she is no dwarf? Because she made the _mistake_ of loving one? Because she-"

"Because she is an elf," Dis said. "And for all that Kili loved her, there is too much hatred. We will find who committed this murder, Master Baggins, make no doubt of that. But do not ask of our people more than we are willing to give."

"She was the best of them," Bilbo said. "The best of the elves: honest, and sharp, and _kind._ And it is sickening, that you would paint the crimes of her king on an innocent, just because you don't want to look past your hatred. I don't ask more than is necessary, Princess. Only the basic courtesies."

He bowed, looking quietly incensed, and then moved away to talk to Balin.

Thorin sighed. "This isn't the time," he told his sister.

Dis glared at him. "Not the time? When else are you to declare a mourning-day, _nadad?_ I know, better than anyone, the price of this position. But you cannot make every decision you wish with your heart, do you understand?"

"I'm not saying that you shouldn't have said it at all," Thorin replied wearily. "Only that you might have waited an hour. Kili yet does not know. We've a day, to declare it. And while I know you never approved of her, Dis, I wonder this: do you feel nothing, knowing the heartbreak your son faces?"

"I will not mourn her," Dis said fiercely. "I cannot mourn her absence. But I will grieve for my son's broken heart, as you did mine when Vili died. There need not be understanding for sympathy."

"Just be careful. And _yes,_ I won't declare the mourning-day. She wasn't declared the _khi'nututredel_ in formal court, though it's common enough knowledge… it's all shades of grey. But then Kili will never forgive us."

"And when has that ever factored in your decisions?" Dis asked, deliberately cruel.

Thorin looked at her for a long moment, and then he turned away.

This was their love, built between two people too harsh and too sharp for the world around them. He loved Dis, loved her with all his heart and all his mind, and he knew that she'd borne decades of cutting words from him as well. It was knowing when one overstepped, and then not apologizing for it; but regretting it all the same.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow," he said, and Dis' lips twisted as he moved to flank his betrothed- and that, as Bilbo would say, was that.

...

 **Khuzdul and Sindarin used:**

 **Murdu'shurel: dead-smoke; smoke from cremations**  
 **Yusthel: partner of all partners**  
 **Mamahdûn: Manwe**  
 **Nun'umudtu: twin of my heart**  
 **Nadad: brother**  
 **Aklum: royalty**  
 **Redêl: crown prince**  
 **Emel: mother (S)**  
 **Bingurthu: without ambition**  
 **Khabbûna: forge-lady; colloquial term for asexual woman**  
 **Redel: prince**  
 **Thikil'abnith: steel-stone (Erebor is famous for a kind of shiny stone that looks like steel. This is also a headcanon of mine.)**  
 **Nunur'amrâb: other of my soul**  
 **Lalkhûn: fool**  
 **Nadadith: little brother**  
 **Ishmerafrân'mudtul: ceremony of the heart; common wedding ceremony done by dwarves**  
 **Harasul-zagr: Flame-sword**  
 **Ishmerafrân'amrâb: ceremony of the soul; wedding ceremony done only by royalty**  
 **Thandmesem-mudtul: bracelets of the heart; evidence of Ishmerafrân'mudtul**  
 **Amrâb-zagr: soul-sword; evidence of Ishmerafrân'amrâb**  
 **Khi: One**  
 **Usahu: Ulmo**  
 **Khebbêl: forge of all forges**  
 **Anaburhel: warnings from the heart**  
 **Lasbelingwaew: wanderers; autumn-wind (S)**  
 **Sulladad: Eru Ilúvatar**  
 **Khi'nututredel: One of the last heir; Kili's One; Tauriel**


	3. Arc 3: do you think i am felled?

Sifa felt a weariness so deep in her bones it thrummed: like a harp, like a bird's stringy ligaments, like a fallen elf's long hair.

She paused just outside her rooms, for barely a second, resting her fist on the stone and wishing, for a long, bitter minute that she'd never met a Durin. Life would've been easier, she wanted to say; easier, and shorter, and perhaps duller.

 _But,_ she thought, still shakier than she preferred, _this is where I am, and I would not change a thing._

Inside, the rooms were lit-up gold with afternoon light. The red throws and yellow cushions and orange cloths made it look like a sunrise.

Sifa remembered dark, damp mines, and she suppressed a shudder.

"Sifa," Fíli said, and her head snapped up, meeting his gaze.

Kíli stood beside him, hands fisted and eyes so afraid it made her heart hurt.

"Kíli," she said, and waited for him to look at her.

"She's dead, isn't she?" He asked.

She stepped forward, hands gripping the cold metal backing of her sofa, and she said, quietly, "I am a far better protector than anyone has ever thought me."

And then, wrists rolling together, she intoned, " _Iskhî,"_ and out of a shadowed corner of her rooms, Tauriel appeared.

In the better light, Sifa could see the elf's pale skin, and the way she held her arm at an awkward angle; there was blood spattering Tauriel's robes, and the dwarven magic had not been kind to an already-injured constitution, but she was _alive,_ and that mattered more than anything else.

"Tauriel?" Kíli asked, looking so stunned that Sifa turned her face, giving some modicum of privacy.

Fíli caught her eye.

He was smarter than his brother, or perhaps just less emotional at the moment; it took Fíli just a few seconds to come to the correct conclusion.

"Sifa?" He asked, and she heard his unspoken words easily.

"She was in danger every moment she stayed alive," Sifa explained, stepping away from the other two and closer to him. "As long as everyone believes she is dead, none can move against her. We talked about such a possibility twice, actually, the two of us. This incident just… escalated things."

"You hid her with your Iglishmêk-magic?"

She nodded.

There had been a fear down in the mines unlike anything else Sifa'd ever felt: like a baying wolf, something that slithered into her bones and said _you will never walk out of here-_

She had left, but for long, terrifying moments she'd been sure she wouldn't.

"We have to talk about how to pull this off," Tauriel said, and Sifa looked to her gratefully.

Kíli paused. "Pull it off?"

"Yes," said Tauriel. "We've lied to the entire population of Erebor. We have to decide what to do, and how to act, now: if it becomes clear we've lied, there will be…"

"Consequences," said Fíli.

Sifa retrieved a medical kit from a cupboard and began dabbing at Tauriel's bloody arm as they all seated themselves.

It was relief curling inside of her, and a fear: _They will go mad,_ Blaír's voice promised in her mind. _The only way to stop it is forbidden._

How could she save them when she was so afraid of _acting?_ When there was something trembling inside of her like a fire-ridden leaf, and she could not speak to anyone of it, for who knew what the consequences of that would be?

It was a bone-deep fear.

It was a soul-deep fear.

Sifa swept a swab over Tauriel's arm, and she did not shake, and she did not weep, but, oh, how she wanted to.

…

Kíli watched the elves enter Erebor, white-haired and glittering- something too sharp in their stride; erring just on the far side of immortal strength.

The emissaries from Dale were behind them, but for the moment all eyes were on the eldritch warriors approaching Thorin, and beside him, Bilbo. Thranduil wore a pale green cloak that billowed behind him, as did the rest of the elves, and it was a departure from the usual silver that they favored-

He understood, then, and felt his spine straighten stiffly.

Of course they would be angry. Tauriel had been the best of them: a Silvan elf who slew the King of the giant spiders, a Silvan elf who was raised to Captain for her valor. Even if she left Thranduil's patronage for dwarves, she was still _dead._

To them, at least.

And what better way to pay homage than with the color Tauriel had loved best?

Thranduil spoke of the need for kindness among neighbors, and Bard spoke of dependence to reach higher, and Thorin spoke of the partnership of Celebrimbor and Narvi, and at the end of the day nothing had been said. Kíli kept his blank-faced composure by a hairsbreadth, though he wanted nothing more than to yawn loudly.

So the hard grip on his shoulder startled him- and then, upon feeling long fingers instead of blunt ones, frightened him.

He looked up into the star-blue eyes of the Prince of Mirkwood.

"You are the dwarf who seduced Tauriel, are you not?" He asked.

Kíli blinked. "I did not-" The elf's hands tightened, and he bit back his instinct to start yelling; nothing could come of becoming offensive. "Yes."

"You are the one who killed her," Legolas accused softly, and Kíli flinched.

"What happened to Tauriel was a tragedy," he said woodenly. "I miss her. Every day. I-"

"Miss her?" Legolas asked incredulously. " _Miss her?_ How dare you! You stand there as if nothing has happened. This is an insult to me, to my _father,_ to _her,_ how dare you stand there as if you've lost nothing-!"

A hand clamped down on Kíli's other shoulder with an iron grip. He half-turned to see Fíli, looking grimly up at Legolas, and then he felt another hand weight Legolas', and he turned in the other direction to see Sifa, face a mask almost exactly reminiscent of Fíli's.

Legolas stared at the hand gripping his, and his face twisted in disgust.

"So, you've found another to warm your-"

"Remove your hands from the Prince," Sifa ordered, and Legolas let go of him with a thin snarl. Before he could get any farther, however, she stepped forwards, between him and Kíli; something incandescent in her spine.

"You _dare_ to place hands on the sister-son of the King Under the Mountain?" She snapped, and rolled onwards without letting him speak. "You _dare_ to tell him he's lost nothing? He lost his One, he lost her before they could ever _marry,_ he mourns still with everything he has! Look at him, elf! He wears unpaired weaponry, even in his _quiver._ He broke his arrows by hand and remade them. _How dare you?"_

"So as soon as Tauriel died, you-" He began, looking past Sifa to Kíli.

The back of Sifa's neck turned red.

" _Finish that sentence,"_ she said icily. "Finish that sentence, Prince Legolas, and condemn our nations to war for a tongue you could not control!"

"Is it untrue, then?" He demanded.

Fíli cut in, hand still tight across Kíli's shoulder: "As untrue as if the sun rose in the east. Kíli mourns true as a Stonefoot-made blade. And though it is none of your business, I answer this: she is my _wife,_ and your accusations are as insulting to my brother as they are to me, though perhaps not less so than they are to _her."_

Legolas' spine straightened, and after a long moment he said, flatly, "My apologies, then."

"You may address me as Lady Sifa," she said coolly, and tossed her head; she looked wild and unmoored, like an untamed stallion or a sea-funnel storm.

"Then to the Lady Sifa, I address my question," Legolas said. "How can anyone grieve what was their fault for losing?"

"And I counter with this," Sifa said. "That Kíli grieves, for there is a loss that can be found even in the brightest things; for there was a love, even when two entire kingdoms stood against them. He mourns, Prince Legolas, and that you dare to stand there and tell him not to is not a mark against his honor; rather, it is a mark of misunderstanding: for how can you make this the fault of Prince Kíli when it was Tauriel herself who walked into these walls, of her own will?"

He paused, and Kíli took the time to look away and see the crowd around them: Thorin and Thranduil and Bard stood behind a mob of men and elves and dwarves, each looking as stern as the next.

Kíli swallowed, and felt the surge of irritation of the people surrounding them begin to talk hostilely, sharply, angrily. At the same time, an elf jeered from the anonymity of the crowd: "Can the dwarf not speak for himself, then?"

Fíli's hand tightened convulsively. "Is it your people's custom to require mourning lovers to defend their right to mourn?" He demanded. "Is there no consideration given to grief, and loss?"

And, no; that accomplished nothing, as Fíli's pallor showed. The fear and anger was rising, and there was nobody who could defuse the whole thing, and Kíli heard Thorin's gold-mad voice ringing over them as if prophetic: _I will have war._

Before it could truly break, however, Sifa spoke, voice simultaneously formal and yet, somehow, conciliatory.

"I understand that you, too, grieve the Lady Tauriel," she told Legolas. "Indeed, you mourn a half-millennia of friendship, and we mourn less than a year. I understand your pain. Yes, there is hatred that can be found here, Prince Legolas; but there is kindness, and friendship, and trust as well." She sighed, and lifted her chin to meet his gaze. "Come. Let us sit, and speak, in private. One grieving friend to another."

Legolas arched an eyebrow. "Why you?"

"You would wish to speak to me because I was the last one to see the Lady Tauriel, and further still the one who watched her-" she paused for a brief second, then finished, "-end."

He froze. "You were trapped with her?"

"I was," Sifa said. "And I will speak more, Prince Legolas, but not now, and not here."

Slowly, as if carved from some old, hardened marble, he said, "Indeed. There is a time and place for such things."

Sifa waited, outwardly calm; the only sign of tension a certain stiffness in the muscles of her neck.

"Tonight?" He asked finally.

"I would be honored," said Sifa, and then Legolas bowed, sharply, and he and the elves strode away; the men and other dwarves milled about for a few more moment before dispersing as well.

Thorin stepped forwards and Fíli met him halfway there. Both began speaking rapidly together, in a mix of Khuzdul and Westron, and Fíli managed to look both irritable and frightened in the peculiar mix of emotion he seemed to feel so often.

Sifa was still as stone beside him.

"What was that?" He asked her, only to receive no answer.

Fíli flanked his other side, and he asked the question again, a bit sharper; his brother reached forwards and jostled Sifa's elbow, guiding her towards the corridor leading to the Outer Wing.

"She saw a chance and ran with it," Fíli muttered into his ear. "No talking here, Kíli, just wait a minute."

In Sifa's rooms, he yanked the door shut. Sifa said something that sounded vaguely like - _Tauriel,_ which made Kíli start forwards before he could think properly. Fíli drew him back and waved Sifa away. Once she'd left, Kíli whirled on his brother.

"Fíli?" He asked sharply.

His brother yanked at his mustache bead, and looked so intensely unhappy Kíli softened.

"Sifa saw a chance and took it," he repeated. " We needed to nip their anger quickly, and if she can convince him, she can accomplish everything necessary. But speaking in front of a hostile crowd's not the easiest thing to do, so she tried to get him alone."

"And away from me," Kíli pointed out.

Fíli snorted. "You're not the one everyone usually considers for diplomacy, _nadad."_

Which was… true. Kíli couldn't dissemble to save his life, much less play word-games with the subtlety of elves. Biting his tongue had saved him before, but he'd never have the silver tongue gifted to Balin or Fíli; rather, he'd inherited the Durin propensity for bluntness even in the worst of times.

"What's she doing now, then?"

"Thinking of what to say," Fíli said. "She won't lie if she can avoid it, of course, but elves can't taste lies as Thorin can. She has some leeway." He sighed. "But the consequences of not convincing him… _those_ are frightening indeed."

Kíli said, hoarsely, "If she convinces him, _nadad,_ I will have Thorin name her Sifa Mithriltongue, and I will sing her praises from Erebor's peak."

"I'll do it myself," Fíli said wryly, and then turned. "I have to go talk to Balin, _again,_ about that treaty that Sifa and Tauriel wrote. Apparently they researched more in two weeks than the entire Scrivening Guild in four months. Little wonder we've achieved nothing, if that's even _possible."_

With a disgusted glare he left, and Kíli slumped back on old pillows, head cradled in his hands exhaustedly.

…

And, indeed, she achieved it.

Neither she nor Legolas would say what happened, but when they left there was an honest warmth in his eyes, and the elves were far more courteous after that day than any other that the dwarves could remember.

Tauriel tasted old Noldorian wine on the roof of her mouth as she watched this fledgling peace, and she tasted hope in its sapidity.

…

Fíli stalked grimly through the fourth floor, watching the Meeting of Three Kings on the floor below through the low-set grills.

He was _tired_ of sitting there, of smiling blandly into elvish disdain; of biting his tongue and soothing Thorin's rages when all he wanted was to draw his swords and chop off the ugly braids the elves wore.

He remembered Tauriel's face as she emerged from shadowed death, and Sifa's pinched exhaustion as she left Legolas' rooms, and Kíli's grief when he thought his _khi_ dead, and he found restraint- but only enough to know when to excuse himself, not to actually stay there and exchange words.

He turned a corner, and found a dwarf scrabbling over the stone, holding a pile of wood in his arms and looking so _alarmed_ -

"What are you doing?"

The dwarf flinched, and his already wide eyes turned even larger; he clutched the wood tightly, and stumbled back three feet.

"Majesty!" He squeaked. Fíli frowned, and the dwarf suddenly twisted to the side so that Fíli caught a glimpse of a dwarf behind him: a dame, he realized a moment later; a dame, sighting down an arrow.

It took less than a thought for him to lash out, shoving past the first dwarf and drawing his throwing-axe from his boot. A moment later he cut the string of the bow and spun away, just in time to avoid the recoil and shove the dame forward so she got a faceful of springing wood.

Her cry of pain was muffled by him driving the toe of his boot straight into her gut, emptying her lungs of air.

And then he met the first dwarf's attack.

It was all over in a matter of seconds: the dwarf had clearly been meant to be a lookout, unblooded as he was, and the dame had been taken by surprise before she could become a threat.

Fíli tied them up with strips of their own clothing and headed back to the hall, flicking a quick sign at Sifa: _need to talk._

 _Now?_ She asked.

 _Yes,_ he confirmed, and waited for her to slip away.

"Something the matter?" Sifa asked archly, tipping her hands together in the sign for _private._

Fíli nodded once, sharply. "I found assassins. D'you know where Tauriel is?"

"...yes," she said slowly. "But what do you need her for?"

"She was Captain under Thranduil, was she not? She can- help. In getting information, I mean."

"You mean torture," Sifa said quietly.

"I don't want to do it," he replied. "But if I must, I will."

She looked down at her hands, and when she looked up again there was unhappy resolve on her face. "I'll get Tauriel, then," she said, and then her hands fisted. "Fíli: ensure this is- not common. Whatever else we dwarves are, we are not Orcs to treat prisoners with cruelty. If they do not give you answers… do what you must. But-"

"I take no pleasure in it," he said slowly, feeling a twinge of indignancy at her words; but Sifa only sighed, and then placed a cool hand on his wrist, and then walked away.

 _Mahal have mercy on my soul,_ Fíli thought, and unsheathed his knife with grim determination.

…

That night, Erebor slumbered.

 _Heart-Under-the-Mountain-is-safe,_ the old stones crooned, but there were none alive who heard. _King-is-alive,_ the stones sang, and none listened.

(One heard, but had other things to hear; other fears to face.)

There was a power in its bones, and a life that rose from a hundred-thousand deaths.

(Once upon a time, a king slaughtered an entire people for that power.)

Peace, you see, is built on blood. Silence is built on tears. And strength is built on the backs of the weak.

…

Kíli was in his rooms, and Sifa was there as well, and he knew both of them looked pale and exhausted under the layers of gold and riches they wore- but there was still a tension in the room that wouldn't fade.

There were many things that Fíli did that Kíli would never understand. His brother was dutiful to a fault, diplomatic as if bred into his bones, and loved whole-heartedly; which made his choice of wife even the more incomprehensible.

Sifa was sharp-tongued, and blunt, and so private Kíli had yet to hear her say more than a few sentences in his presence. But she'd said something to Tauriel when he'd driven his _khi_ away, and Tauriel had stayed. She'd defended him before a crowd of people without any hesitance. She'd spoken to Legolas, and the elves had become courteous as never before.

He still did not _know_ her.

Kíli had tried to approach it obliquely, but failed miserably; Sifa had deflected and, more often than not, simply looked amused.

But Kíli was a dwarf: when subtlety didn't work, there was always bluntness.

"What _does_ my brother see in you?"

Sifa blinked out of a blank-eyed stare into the fire. "Pardon?"

"What does Fíli see in you?" He repeated.

"I suppose he sees me," she said quizzically.

" _That,"_ he exclaimed. "That, right there! You don't _answer_ when people ask questions. I'm… just- you're so different. I want to make sure he's happy."

"I assure you he is," Sifa said dryly. "Happier than the situation warrants, all told. It's been- what, more than a month?- since our marriage, and he definitely likes having someone around all the time. Truth be told, I'd not have married so quick had I known how- loud- he could be."

It was Kíli's turn to blink.

He opened his mouth to speak, and the door crashed open, revealing a disheveled Fíli.

"You've got to see this," he panted, and dragged them out.

It was night, and both of them knew the pattern of guard rotations; they avoided notice easily enough. When they were in the safety of the fourth floor storeroom next to the one with the assassins, Fíli spoke.

"There're four Lords who've defected," he said lowly. "There were two, initially, but they've promised two others gold enough to buy the Iron Hills thrice over. All are on Dáin's Council."

Kíli's breath caught in his lungs, and Sifa, beside him, straightened slowly.

"Upper or Lower?" Sifa asked.

"Upper."

Kíli hissed out a breath. "A fifth of the Lords are against us?"

"Yes." Fíli winced. "The Meeting began today, so Thorin asked for the Iron Hill dwarves to enter Erebor as a show of strength. They're inside, they've got armies and can act any minute they want."

"Who're the two assassins, then?"

"D'you remember the scribe you heard being an idiot?" Sifa nodded, and Fíli went on: "It's him. And another lady from his family, though I couldn't get the exact relation. Apparently he and the dwarf we banished- his name was Gunnig, by the way- are sworn to separate Lords. And Gunnig was, apparently, a thrice-damned _official_ assassin. As official as it gets, at least."

"Anyone asks questions and they disappear," Sifa said disgustedly. "Mahal's forge, this is a mess."

 _Wait a minute._

"More than you know," Kíli whispered, and both of them frowned simultaneously; he said, sharply, "Do you think they'll miss the fact that those two aren't around any longer? They were supposed to _succeed in killing someone._ And-"

"-nobody died."

Fíli looked ghost-pale in the light. "They know, then. Can we- I mean. Does anyone have stone-sense enough to _know?_ Erebor's too big, we have to identify where they are before we act."

"No need," said Tauriel, and Kíli turned to face her: she stood in the doorway, backlit with lamps and, holding her sword- looking like an avenging angel. "They told me."

"They _knew?"_ Fíli asked.

She arched an eyebrow and glided into the room. "One for the King's rooms," she said, and none of them could hide a flinch. "Another for the Captain's quarters. And the last two for the Arkenstone."

"We have to stop them," Fíli bit out.

"How?" Kíli shot back. "They're ready. It'll be tonight, if they're smart, and none of the dwarves Dwalin's trained are a match for a blooded troop! It'll be a slaughter, even if we do manage to get the word out."

"That doesn't mean we shouldn't try," Sifa murmured. Her eyes swept over them, and ended on Fíli, liquid-bright with something he didn't know to name. "Who is the quieter amongst the two of you?" She asked Fíli and Kíli.

"Me," said Fíli.

"And between you and Tauriel, it would be her," she said, and he nodded. "Then you shall go, Fíli, to the royal rooms: warn your uncle, and the Consort, and your mother. Get behind locked doors and ready yourself for a siege."

"I suppose I'm to warn everyone else?" Tauriel asked.

"If you can," Sifa said simply.

"And I?" Kíli asked.

" _We,"_ she said, "are going to stop those going after the Arkenstone."

"Oh, is that all?" He asked, voice edged.

Sifa ignored him. Fíli said, quietly, "Sifa," and she ignored him, as well; just said, flatly, to Tauriel, "The quickest way to the captain's quarters to ring the warning-bell is through the bottom tunnels. Fíli can take you most of the way before having to go to the royal rooms."

" _Sifa,"_ Fíli snapped.

"Yes?" She asked, not facing him.

"Stopping two troops of dwarves is a feat that Uncle couldn't do," he said.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said impatiently. I'm not going after them with a halberd."

"Then how are you going after them?" Fíli retorted. "Just ask them politely?"

"Needs must," she said, and promptly proceeded to ignore him until she'd finished giving instructions to Tauriel. Then she folded her fingers into a smooth motion and said something under her breath, and as quietly as that Tauriel faded into the shadows as if she'd never existed.

It prickled along Kíli's neck like an unnatural thing, and he suppressed a shiver. A moment later Sifa turned to him and asked, "Where is the Arkenstone?"

Kíli looked towards Fíli, and she turned to her husband slowly.

Fíli remained silent for a long minute, measuring Sifa up steadily. She didn't appear the least bit fazed by the scrutiny; when he answered, she looked more tired than triumphant.

"The Gallery of Kings. It is hidden behind a tapestry."

"Will the Lords know of it?" She asked, voice inflectionless.

Fíli's spine straightened. "It was no true secret, when I hid it in the weeks before Uncle awoke. It is very likely that they might."

"Then we shall go there." Sifa bowed stiffly, and then stepped forwards, hand clamping around Fíli's wrist. "Be _safe,"_ she ordered. "Don't do anything stupid. And trust me, Fíli: I know my limits. There are things you don't know, that I've not told you, but they will help me here. Do you understand?"

"Stay safe," Fíli murmured, bending his forehead to rest on hers. "And don't worry. We're a matched pair, the two of us, aren't we?"

" _Khebbêl,"_ Sifa said amusedly, and something both tender and knife-sharp passed between them.

Kíli strode away and wished he'd remembered to speak to Tauriel before Sifa laid the geas over her. At the shadowed entrances, he spoke to the air, in the vain hope that he might address her.

"Come back to me, alright Tauriel? You have to. You've fought off death so many times: one more miracle, yes? Come back. You can do this. I know it." He closed his eyes and then breathed deep; let battle-fire light up his blood. "Come back," he said, and thought he felt a brush across his shoulder like cold water under starlight.

He nodded once and turned to his brother and his sister-in-law.

"If we are to move," Kíli announced, "we have to do it _now."_

Sifa held onto Fíli for a moment longer, then both of them pulled away together.

"Mahal guide you," she said to Fíli, and he bowed his head.

"May he lend you swiftness and silence," Fíli replied, and then he left, leaving his brother and wife alone, ready to take on eighty dwarves in a hunt for the stone to rule Erebor.

"Are you ready?" Sifa asked, eyes steady as a rooted oak.

Kíli thought of knives in the dark, and whispers in shadows, and the way Thorin burned brighter than a flame as King Under the Mountain; the shine of gold across a dragon's scales, and the soft velvet of an elf-maid's tunic, and the curl of light across the tip of Erebor's peak at dawn.

 _This is mine,_ he thought fiercely, and lifted his chin. _I will die fighting for this, or I will die trying._

"Yes," he said, and followed Sifa into dark corridors.

…

"Stay here," Sifa told Kíli, and stepped out of the shadows before he could answer.

The Gallery was cool, almost twice as large as most Ereborean rooms. At the base of the join of two tapestries, two dwarf Lords stood in full armor and display.

In their hands was the Arkenstone.

Even from this far Sifa could feel the energy pouring off of it. It wasn't the unnatural kind of dragon-sickness, or gold-madness; just the power of something that a thousand dwarves pledged their lives to- a power derived from sworn oaths and promised debts.

"Lord Berl," she called, stepping further into view. "Lord Gyre."

Berl turned slowly, hand going to the sword at his waist. " _Khi'redêl,"_ he said when he saw her. "What are you doing here?"

"Put the Arkenstone down," Sifa said softly, moving towards them. "Berl, this is not something you want. Neither of you."

"Vengeance?" Gyre asked flatly.

"Civil war," she replied, painfully aware of the number of swords she'd just placed between herself and Kíli. "How many will die for your greed? For your hatred?"

"My _son_ was the consequence of Thorin Oakenshield's fear," Berl snarled. "Sixty years ago. He went with a group of dwarves on a mission just as hopeless, and what happened to them? They came here, and they _died._ All of them. Smaug ate him and his friends, and where was the King then? What makes him so special, to defeat a dragon that they could not?"

"The unbroken blood of Durin's sons," Sifa said. "There is a fire inside their blood, Lord Berl, and the very fabric of the world bends to their whim. You must know this: you swore fealty to Thorin Oakenshield when you came. Do you rescind your word?"

"He is not fit to be King," Gyre bit out. "I will not deign to see that _coward_ on the throne of the Lonely Mountain."

"Do not do this," Sifa said quietly. "Put the Arkenstone down. Walk away. This is not something you wish to do."

"And what can you do about it, _khi'redêl?"_ He asked, stepping closer to her.

Sifa felt a wash of despair over her bones, and asked, "Would you rather die than see Thorin Oakenshield as King Under the Mountain?"

" _Yes,"_ hissed Berl, and Gyre moved to flank him, and she could see the memory of those they'd lost written across their faces.

Sifa closed her eyes and let resolve fill her up from the bones like an unplugged spring. She reached deep, deeper than ever before, and when she sang the world exploded in light.

…

Tauriel walked in darkness, and she did not fear it.

The shadows brushed her fingers, and she bared her teeth, swirling her dagger so it cut at the black reach. Fíli had moved quickly and quietly beside her, but then he'd left to warn his family and Tauriel was left to the heat of battle by herself.

There was a full troop- forty dwarves- arranged in the guardroom. Three dead dwarves were stacked at the doorway, and Tauriel felt her heart lurch in her throat like a shaking boat: how _dare_ these dwarves move against their own? How dare they twist their oaths, how dare they kill unwarned, innocent guards who were untrained-

 _Breathe, Tauriel. Let your sword be your answer._

She inhaled, exhaled; slid forwards, eeling between the dwarves as smoothly as she could. Until she was standing right before the warning bells. She remembered Sifa's warning: _there is only one clapper that will make the bells sing_ , and her rhyme, meant to memorize the steps, and took the rope tied around the first bell in hand.

 _Over the Lonely Mountain_

Tauriel swung the rope over the sharp tip of the top bell.

 _Under the chillest sky_

Lashed the rope to the underside of the platform.

 _There is a hope inside me_

She dug out the metal clapper that was hidden inside the platform itself, and stepped towards the first bell.

 _Awaiting the moment to fly._

Hands unwavering, she slammed the clapper into the side of the bell. The deep vibrations rumbled along her bones and she nearly dropped both clapper and knife, but then the next bell in the series took up the song, and she could step away.

Tauriel swiveled away, hands coming up with knives in both hands, shadows licking at her bones and vengeance thrumming in her blood.

Traitorous dwarves poured into the room shouting in alarm, and she stepped forwards to meet them, knives flashing.

...

Kíli almost started forwards, but remembered the dig of Sifa's nails into his wrist: painful, and with a fierce surety shining in her eyes. He'd promised not to move, and while it burned he had no choice.

Berl moved, fast as a striking snake, sword unsheathing and darting towards her.

Berl moved, but Sifa was faster.

She held a knife in her hand that shone pale gold, and twisted away from his sword with a gracefulness that was… different. Not elven, as Tauriel's sword-dances, or human, as the guards of Dale; not dwarven, either. Not anything that Kíli knew.

She said something once more to Berl, and then to Gyre, almost pleading; but he did not pause to answer her.

"You bring this upon yourself!" She rolled her shoulders through the same move as before to avoid his strike. "Berl-"

" _You will die,"_ Gyre swore, drawing his own sword, and Sifa's face hardened.

"One day, certainly," she said. "But not today. Not by your hand."

She stamped her foot, hands extending outwards smoothly, and the stone under their feet rolled with the motion. Berl slipped, landing on his knees, and the Arkenstone fell with him, landing on the polished floor. Gyre stumbled back a full five steps.

Sifa threw her head back and sang.

It was no song that Kíli had ever heard before. This crashed through his bones like a waterfall, like a landslide, all raw fury and untempered beauty. It was not beautiful; it was not kind. It was a truth being given voice, and there was no gentleness in it.

 _Traitor,_ she sang without words, in the oldest language of all. _I name you traitor, and clanless, and_ binaklum. _Mountain as my witness, I turn my cheek to your grief._

There was lightning in the room, Kíli thought. An electric, chalybeous presence, slithering around them, awaiting the end of Sifa's speech.

Berl snarled, struggling to his feet, and Sifa fell silent; the high-ceilinged room took up her voice and raised it to something sharply otherworldly. In the gap, she raised her hand, and Berl and Gyre stopped moving with a hiss. At his feet, the Arkenstone glowed brighter and slowly rose in time to Sifa's hand.

Gasps came from the assembled troops. The seething mass of spiny steel made him want to cringe away, but Sifa was _down there,_ singing and keeping her head on her shoulders by a hairsbreadth.

The song she took up this time was angrier: a Balrog's whip and a cold drake's fire. Sharper, harder; like a battle-dawn both glorious and harrowing.

Kíli shivered as the notes danced down the back of his arm like a whisper of wind.

It matched his tremor, and so he didn't notice at first. But then it happened again, and Kíli felt a slow, sickening lurch in his gut.

The Arkenstone trembled as it hung in mid-air.

Sifa's eyes locked on Berl's, and then she raised both arms high, voice lengthening into a long, quivering note that hung in the air.

The Arkenstone shattered.

Pale light streamed out of it, wrapping around Sifa's outstretched arms like ribbons, until they were completely covered. Sifa's eyes glowed with power, supernatural light making her look almost elvish for a moment; and then two thick streams flowed away from her, wrapping around Berl and Gyre instead.

Berl flinched upright, and so the people behind him could see the way his flesh, under the cold glow of the Arkenstone's light, turned to stone. Gyre arched his back, mouth opening in a long, silent scream that would never be released.

There was a murmur, a hiss of repulsion and fear. Kíli drew his sword with shaking hands, ready to move forwards, but Sifa said, " _Shazara,"_ and a disk of white light flowed outwards from her hands, silencing the dwarves.

More swords were drawn in defiance, and Sifa almost seemed to smile at that: she brought her hands down, sharply, and barked, " _Harasul zagr,"_ and he felt the sword he held warm rapidly enough to burn his hands. He threw it away from him, as did the others below.

Sifa suddenly dropped to her knees, head thrown back in a long, low cry: Kíli frowned, half-starting forwards, before he felt a terrible weight pressing down on his lungs like a crumpled piece of chest-mail.

The alien, electric presence that Sifa had summoned.

And then Sifa's eyes opened, and she shifted unerringly, turning to the alcove that hid him, and raised her hands, the dagger resting on her palms like an offering.

" _Redel,"_ said Sifa, voice pitched to carry, "have I dishonored you?"

Kíli inhaled sharply, and stepped out of the shadows. The troops shifted uneasily but formed a path for him to see Sifa, seemingly reluctant to get between the two of them.

"Have I dishonored you and your kin?" Sifa asked, again, voice steady as Thorin's hands on a sword.

"Why?" He asked, moving forwards until he was a scarce foot from her.

"If I have," Sifa whispered, "you must kill me. Take this knife, and kill me." There was liquid fear in her eyes, and grief, he thought; but resolve, pure as the heart of a flame, was there as well. "You must do it, _redel:_ for if you do not, then Fíli will have to, and I will not break him like that. So. Have I dishonored you?"

 _You have saved me, and all of us,_ Kíli thought, and reached forwards to take the knife from her.

Sifa tipped her head back, baring the gilded line of her neck.

"When you went to speak to the Mirkwood Prince," Kíli said, "I swore to name you Mithriltongue if you succeeded in convincing him. The only dishonor that I can find here, tonight, are two dwarves torn apart from grief and old hatred. Rise, Sifa, _khi'redêl."_

It was not until he'd finished speaking that he realized the heavy presence looking down on them disappeared. Sifa sagged in relief, for a bare second, and then she straightened to her feet with more determination than grace.

"We must take them to the dungeons," she told him quietly.

Kíli blinked. "Now?"

"Give them reassurance, but no mercy that we cannot afford; it is your Uncle's decision, in the end, is it not?" She quirked her lips. "We cannot kill them, or allow them to go free either."

"The best place for that is the dungeons," he said resignedly.

Sifa inclined her head. "They've no Lord, so little enough chance for a rebellion."

"And," Kíli said dryly, "they've no swords, either."

A small smile stole across her face like a flash of lightning. "That might help," she said. "I leave you to-" She broke off as the warning bells began ringing, face relaxing a fraction, and then continued: "I will speak to Fíli. I hope you can do this on your own?"

Kíli looked out over the assembled dwarves, all looking young and pale in the wake of the loss of their leaders, and he said, "I think I can handle them."

"Good," Sifa said. "Stay safe, Prince Kíli. And come back. Fíli would never forgive me if you did not survive."

She smiled, ghost-pale, and slipped away. Kíli turned to the troops and began herding them along, worry and fear and confusion a pulsing knot at the base of his neck.

…

Sifa got out of the Gallery of Kings and into the earthen tunnels beneath, and vomited on the floor.

She closed her eyes, and let herself shake, and then she got up, swept a hand over her mouth, and kept going.

…

Fíli felt his hands relax on cold steel as the warning-bells began ringing.

Less than a quarter-hour later, Sifa burst through the rooms, pale-skinned but alive, and Fíli felt a relief that burst inside his chest like a red-skinned cherry; he swallowed, hard, and her face softened into something almost gentle.

"Your Majesty," she said, bowing her head to Thorin, who stood behind him. "It is over. The dwarves are subdued, of those who headed for the Arkenstone. Those who took the guardroom have been beaten- and those who came for you have scattered as the tides turned with the ringing of the warning bells. All that is left is to speak of the consequences of tonight's actions."

"Indeed," said Thorin. "And identify how you both knew of what was to come."

Sifa bit her lip, and Fíli answered for her, "The dwarves who took your seal, Uncle. We've been looking for them. Today- we found it out."

"Luck indeed," said Dís.

Fíli offered her a small smile. Sifa turned towards the door.

"I- must check on Kíli," she said. "He ought to have placed the dwarves in the dungeons by now. I hope-"

"I know the way to the throne room," Thorin said dryly, and she nodded, once, before taking Fíli's hand and dragging him out.

Outside, they slipped into one of the earthen tunnels, and Sifa began to curse lowly, vehemently: her hands swept over his shoulders before she stepped away, shaking with some great anger directed at herself.

"Sifa?" Fíli asked slowly.

She paused her invectives, and deflated. "Thorin will call Dáin to the throne room," she said slowly. "And if Dáin has a head on his shoulders he'll- well. Tell me this, Fíli: can you remember if Dáin ever swore fealty to Thorin?"

"When Thorin announced the Meeting to Erebor," he replied quizzically. "He…"

"Led a warcry that shook the stone rafters of the Lonely Mountain," Sifa said mechanically. "But no fealty."

"Mahal's bloodiest hammer," Fíli swore, and started to return the way they'd come.

Sifa caught his shoulder and asked, fiercely, "Have you gone mad?"

"We have to tell Thorin!" He exclaimed.

"And tell him what?" Sifa asked. "That he cannot punish Dáin for a rebellion of his soldiers? If the King does nothing- there will no longer be trust between the Iron Hills and Erebor. Not now, and not for another seven centuries. No. We have to figure out something that doesn't result in _war,_ now that we've saved everyone's _lives-"_

She broke off at a scrape of cloth against stone, and as Fíli drew his swords she stepped forwards slowly, curiously; a moment later she relaxed and swept her wrists inwards in a rolling gesture, and Tauriel stepped out of the shadows like a pale, bloodied ghost.

"Not mine," Tauriel said, seeing Fíli's concerned grimace. "I slipped out before the dwarves could surround me, though it was a- close thing. Closer than I'd have liked."

"You did what was necessary," Fíli said. "You saved us all, Tauriel. Without you the troops would have breached the royal room's defenses. Another half-hour and we'd be dead. It was- terribly brave of you."

"Indeed," snapped Sifa. "Bravo to all of you. Now come _on,_ we've no time- we can call ourselves heroes after we've averted civil war for the second time in half the number of days."

Tauriel arched an eyebrow slowly. "Has something happened?"

"We've perhaps four hours before everything crashes down on our heads. Start walking or we won't achieve anything," Sifa said shortly, and they followed her into the tunnels.

An hour later, they'd explained everything to Tauriel and Kíli and were sitting in Tauriel's rooms; Fíli and Sifa were debating possible reactions that they could push Thorin into, and Kíli was dabbing salve on Tauriel's bruised torso.

Though it wasn't so much that Fíli and Sifa were debating so much as they threw out ideas that were just as quickly dismissed by the other. Fíli was growing steadily frustrated, and knew Sifa to be the same: it was infuriating to have victory snatched out of one's palms, particularly after all they'd been through.

"Threaten Dáin-"

"He'll laugh, and call up his Lords even quicker. Maybe talk to the Lords-"

"If Dáin's not sworn why would they obey us? We can get Balin to write up a treaty-"

"No _time,_ Fíli, maybe we've another hour to think of something, and then it's all going to go downhill. What about-"

And so it went: Fíli frowned and fell silent after a few more tries, and Sifa followed suit, though she still twitched her head in minute shakes as if rejecting ideas.

Then Tauriel twisted her head to look at Fíli, and asked, "What are you trying to stop here?"

"... civil war?" Fíli asked, trying not to sound like he was questioning her intelligence.

Tauriel sent him a flat look. "Obviously," she said. "But I meant: is it loss of life you wish to avert, or to keep diplomatic relations with the Iron Hills?"

"They've been thinking of killing Dáin or trapping them in a contract, Tauriel," Kíli said behind her, voice muffled behind a bandage. "I don't think they exactly care about _diplomatic relations."_

Fíli rolled his eyes, but didn't bother to dispute the point.

"I," she hesitated, then forged on with the air of a person simultaneously regretting their life choices yet knowing they'd regret the consequences of inaction even more. "In writing the diplomatic treaty for the Meeting, Sifa and I- we read a lot of books. Books of past precedence, mostly, for treaties that other elven kingdoms held with other dwarven kingdoms."

"Yes," Fíli said, feeling slightly lost.

Tauriel turned to Sifa, who was still ignoring all of them by muttering to herself, and asked, "Do you remember the story of the Ironfists?"

"What?" She asked. "What story? What do Ironfists have to do with anything?"

"They lived in Mount Gundabad after seizing control from the Longbeards," Tauriel said, eyes gleaming with some sort of a glee. "And Durin II laid siege to the mountain, in an attempt to win it back. The leader of the Ironfists didn't want all his people to die, once it became clear the Longbeards would not leave, and-"

"-asked Durin for mercy," Sifa continued, suddenly looking hopeful. "And Durin could not let them go without battle, for there was honor to be found in the Longbeards, and so he called up his Council-men and declared a ceremony of _damm'mudtul._ So Durin stated that under the auspices of that ceremony it would be as if their armies had fought, and the winner would be the winner of that battle."

"Indeed," said Tauriel, inclining her head a fraction. "Can you use that precedent?"

"If we're smart," said Fíli.

Sifa nodded. "But there are quite a few caveats to the ceremony, Fíli: only kin past the fifth degree can be in the ring. If we declare it, Dáin has the chance to name his champion first. And it is not to first blood, or to falling outside the bounds of the arena that the duel continues for, but rather death."

 _Death,_ thought Fíli, and felt a chill sink into his bones like a winter storm.

"You are sure?" Kíli asked.

Tauriel stretched her shoulders easily. "Yes," she said. "Elven memory does not fade, _Morwinyon._ I can see the book in my mind's eye as if it were before me even now. All she says is true, though Sifa forgot one thing: there are two weapons allowed into the arena, and two alone. One being the body, and the other steel."

"It cannot be me or Fíli," he said slowly. "Bonds of kin- he's our second uncle or some such rot. Maybe if we ask Dori? He's strong enough."

"But not trained," said Sifa. "And Dáin is better with his axes than any other dwarf I've seen in recent history." At Kíli's arched eyebrow she rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Kíli, your uncle's definitely better with a sword, and I think in terms of strength Thorin's stronger. But Dáin's still better than anyone you can muster."

Fíli looked over them all, at the weariness already setting into Sifa's shoulders; at the despair in his brother's eyes, and he turned to Tauriel, who was watching them with a small, quiet smile playing about her lips.

"Not everyone," he said.

Kíli saw where he was looking and shot to his feet. "Not a chance, _nadad,"_ he bit out. "Not after we sent her against a full troop. You think-"

"I think," Tauriel said irritably, "I can speak for myself."

Kíli looked at her, face sour as if he'd bitten into a lemon. " _Nin gûr?"_ He said helplessly.

"And my _amrâb?"_ She replied, and Fíli twitched at the use of Sindarin in his brother's mouth and Khuzdul in an elf's.

There was a long silence, until finally Kíli turned away with an oath.

Tauriel didn't pause to pay attention to him; only said, quietly, "I've seen Dáin Ironfoot fight, Fíli. I've seen his methods. My own are- different- from the rest of the Mirkwood elves, so even if he has much knowledge of their fighting methods there are still surprises I can hide."

"But you are an archer, first," Sifa said, and Tauriel's mouth pursed unhappily. "In the arena, you will use a sword. Is that not going to put you at a disadvantage?"

"I've been practicing," Tauriel said.

Fíli waited. When Sifa did not respond, he leaned forwards and caught Tauriel's hands in his own.

"I have treated you unkindly," he said grimly, staring into her eyes. "I have threatened you, and belittled you, and even my support was grudging. I have asked you to stay inside a mountain where the people wish to kill you. And you have given everything I asked: that, and more. I ask you, one last thing for me and for my people: will you bear arms inside the arena?"

"And I answer this," Tauriel said, voice unyielding as steel, "that I shall bear arms as needed, in the arena or otherwise. I do not do this for you, or for Kíli, even; for an innocent people, I will enter into the arena. For a mountain that was once ripped apart for greed- a dragon's greed, a dwarf-king's greed- if there is anything I can do to stop it, I shall. For the dwarves who gave their lives in this terrible coup, I shall risk my own."

"Thank you," said Sifa, eyes intent on Tauriel. Then she turned to him. "We must move ahead, then, with the plan."

"Details," he said disgustedly, stepping away from Tauriel.

"Come, now," said Tauriel amusedly. "We've drafted a treaty, Sifa and I. I'm sure we can manage how to reveal everything without too much difficulty."

"And, of course, ensure it to be sufficiently dramatic for you and your brother," Sifa said, and then Kíli snorted, and some of the tension leaked out of the room.

Fíli reached forwards, swinging a loose fist into Kíli's shoulder, and they tussled for a moment before finally slinking away. Sifa didn't bother to wait for them; she and Tauriel sat on the couch and began planning.

"We'll let Thorin begin the conversation and then break in with Fíli," she began, and Fíli leaned slightly into her warmth, and he let the cold chill slowly flood out of his body.

…

Kíli bit his tongue as they slipped into the throne room.

Dáin stood in the middle, and Thorin sat on his throne; Dís and Bilbo were flanking him. The Iron Hill Lords were arrayed about the room with their troops, and the elves and men were interspersed throughout.

There was a lot of confusion.

Sifa'd told them about the two Lords who had begun the whole thing. It had been pure common-sense for Thorin not to attack Smaug as the Iron Hill dwarves had six decades prior- what idiot decided to retake a fire drake's hoard by _knocking on the front door?_

But the Lords had lost their sons, and their brothers, and grief could blind even the wisest dwarves, as Kíli well knew. The other two troops- who'd been responsible for taking the guardroom and attacking his Uncle- had been swayed by promises of power and Ereborean gold.

Which wasn't _surprising,_ all told.

The fact that Sifa and Fíli had managed to stop the worst of the disaster- the coup had been silenced quickly, and those who'd acted against Thorin had been killed just as quietly- helped a little. But Dáin's men were still a majority under the mountain, and Thorin couldn't let Dáin go without _some_ repercussions, and Dáin couldn't allow Thorin to demand recompense without appearing a weak coward, so here they were: bound by ancient decrees and codes of honor, and waiting to dethrone a dwarf whose only crime was ruling over traitors.

Kíli did not pity Dáin- it was a king's duty to keep his Lord's in check, after all- but he did feel a vague sort of regret towards him. Whatever else happened between them, Dáin was still kin, and he'd come to their assistance when it was needed.

So: regret, but not nearly enough to stop their planning.

He watched Fíli head over to Thorin and nod; Sifa remained behind, tucked into the deep shadows of the entrance hall, and he knew that Tauriel was somewhere close to her. Kíli swallowed, hard, and pressed cold fingers to his wrist in a vain attempt to steady himself.

Were Tauriel to fail, they needed one last way for the line of Durin to survive. Were Dáin to win, he might turn on Thorin, and if he was quick about it then they might not have a chance. Fíli could not hope to be missed, but Kíli had been in his rooms a lot over the past weeks, ostensibly mourning.

Fíli was the crown prince, but Kíli was _not,_ and it was time for him to perform the task he'd been born to: survive.

If Tauriel failed, Kíli had to leave, quietly and quickly, and not look back.

 _Morwinyon,_ Tauriel had called him. She had named him hope, named him twilight, named him a star in a tongue that twisted around his mouth like slippery riverstones.

 _I will survive,_ Kíli thought, and he did not know to call it a curse or a blessing.

…

"What do you have to say for yourself, cousin?" Thorin asked.

Dáin looked up at him, face scrubbed clean and eyes red-raw. "I had no wish for this," he said. "Berl and Gyre were good dwarves."

"They tried to take the _Arkenstone,"_ Thorin said.

"I did not ask it of them," Dáin replied. "I would never. _Cousin-"_

"Berl raised you," Thorin said softly, and saw the way Dáin's back stiffened. "Berl's son died at Smaug's hands sixty years previous. Are you telling me you did not know?"

"What are you accusing me of?" Dáin asked, quiet in a manner that had never been his wont. When Thorin looked aside for a long moment, he snarled, " _Thorin?_ King Under the Mahal bedamned Mountain, what are ye accusing me of? I'll tell you-!"

"Treason," Thorin spat out, before Dáin said anything more.

Dáin went white under his beard, and his tirade faltered. " _Treason?"_ He forced out. "Treason, Oakenshield? _Treason?_ I come to your aid when none else would've, stay when the rest of the world wants me _gone,_ you think I'll-" Face a brilliant red, he whirled to his Lords. "I'll show you _treason-"_

Thorin opened his mouth to speak, to shout, but no words escaped his throat.

"Lord Dáin," Fíli rapped out suddenly, stepping forward so he stood between Thorin and Dáin, looking every inch a Durin prince. "The charge of treason holds true. Surely you realize: 'twas your Lords who began the revolt, and the leader was your closest advisor. Say what you wish, but your actions- the actions of those closest to you- are betraying."

"How dare you?" Dáin demanded, but got no further.

"How dare I?" Fíli asked, so dangerously Dáin paused. "How dare _I,_ Lord Dáin? Do you know what your Lords have done? Three innocent guards- half-trained, I might add- were killed in the guardroom. Their corpses were not treated with honor, but stacked off to the side as if _rubble._ Your men went after my _mother,_ and the King Under the Mountain, and Bilbo Baggins, _yusthel_ of the King, and had I been delayed ten minutes they might be _dead,_ did you know that?" He remained calm, collected, coldly sharp; and in that moment Thorin saw his mother, Sigdís, reborn: all fierce fury and cut-glass words, directed like daggers.

"And for all that, you do not come here, in the halls that the King reclaimed alone- without your assistance then, Lord Dáin- and offer recompense, or apology." Fíli inhaled, and all the light in the room seemed to rise with him, as if the flame was lit with his own breath. "But for that, we do not wish for anymore death than has already occurred. And so, I ask this: do you know of the ceremony of _damm'mudtul?"_

"Heart-blood," said Dáin, slowly. "The duel laid out by Durin II in Gundabad, is it not?" He nodded, once. "Aye, I've heard it."

"Then I, _redêl_ of Erebor, challenge Dáin Ironfoot to this duel," said Fíli.

Dáin nodded once, sharply. "I place myself forwards," he said.

Fíli bowed his head. In the sharp relief of the light, Thorin thought he could saw his pulse jumping in his neck, wild and jumpy as a rabbit caught in a trap.

There was silence, and then, from a shadowed crevice, a figure stepped forwards, all red hair and pale skin and pointed, narrow ears.

"I place myself forwards," said Tauriel, eyes hard and unforgiving.

…

 _Fool,_ thought Thranduil, hands spasming around air as his ward stepped out of death before his eyes.

…

 _Oh, Tauriel,_ though Legolas, feeling starlight-grief shatter against his soul.

…

Bilbo saw the smile curling under Fíli's bowed head, and the steady hands that Tauriel laid on her sword, and he thought, _you brilliant, brilliant boy._

…

 _Survive,_ Sifa thought, sharp and angry and focused.

I'll put you in danger, I'll do what is necessary, I'll break myself to keep the world together.

 _But you damn well better survive._

…

"An elf?" Dáin asked flatly.

Fíli arched an eyebrow. "The _khi'nututredel,"_ he said mildly. "Unrelated by the bonds of kin to yourself; knowledgeable in the art of battle; an honorary dwarf. Indeed, I think she is the best person here to champion Erebor." With a brittle smile, he turned to Tauriel and sketched a bow. "We accept both representatives. Give an hour for the preparations of the arena, and the duel can begin."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sifa make some gesture with her hands, and Thorin choked to life behind him.

 _Ah,_ Fíli thought, _you silenced him. No wonder he's been so quiet._

But some quick maneuvering allowed him to slip into the seething crowd and avoid the confrontation, and by the time he'd finished talking some of the guards into setting up the sunken platform and railings Thorin had calmed down enough that Fíli wasn't too worried about being spitted like a pig.

"Uncle," he said formally.

Thorin's jaw clenched. "What the hell was that?"

"That," Fíli said, "was me saving us from exile once more."

"Don't be _dramatic,"_ Thorin said, and the hypocrisy of that made Fíli's jaw hang open for a minute.

"I wasn't being dramatic!" He exclaimed. "Mahal's hammer, Uncle: had you pushed Dáin a bit farther he'd have called up his army. D'you think we could've stood against that? I stopped it before it got to that point. I _had_ to."

"You knew before you entered the throne room what you'd do," Thorin accused.

Fíli bit his tongue before he could spit out a lie that Thorin could taste. "Does it matter? Now it'll be one person dying, instead of a thousand. I know which one I'd rather face."

"And the fact that your brother's _khi_ is alive? What about that?"

"What about it?" Fíli asked slowly.

"Tauriel's _alive,"_ said Thorin. "And you, your wife, and your brother pretended otherwise for almost two weeks. _Why?"_

"To save her," Fíli said. "To save her, and us. Because there were two attempts to kill her before that, and they failed, and we couldn't tell you or anyone or she'd _leave,_ so we did the best we could."

"It was cruel," he said quietly.

"And I am sorry for it," Fíli replied.

Thorin nodded, and then stepped forwards, hand clasping the side of his neck roughly. "We shall talk about this later. And you will explain everything to your mother. And you will _tell_ me the next time you do something this stupid, do you understand, Fíli?"

"Yes," said Fíli, and he knocked heads with Thorin, lightly; and then they were moving, slipping between people and trying to maintain some sort of order amongst a howling confusion.

…

Tauriel gripped her sword in a loose grip and stepped into the arena.

 _If you don't come back,_ Kíli had said, eyes bright as stars after a summer shower, _I will never forgive you._

 _Then I hope you will, at the least, not forget me,_ she had replied, hands wrapping around his thick wrists. _Morwinyon, Morwinyon: I love you. And if I break my body under this mountain, if I die here, without stars and without air- I will still love you. I have had a year with you, and I would not give it up for anything. Kíli, Prince, Morwinyon: I have loved, I still love, and I will love you._

Now she looked into Dáin's deepset eyes, and she raised her sword, and she met his axe with a twist of her lips that she would never admit, not to her dying day, to be a smile.

…

Kíli watched, heart in his throat, as Tauriel swung her sword up. The first clash of steel on steel was met with a few murmurs from the crowd, and then Tauriel was moving once more- using speed against Dáin's greater strength.

Dáin was used to paired axes, and having just one- though it was double-bladed- was throwing him off the slightest bit. But then Tauriel wasn't used to swords either, and it showed in the initial flurry of attacks.

He wanted to start forwards and announce himself, be there for Tauriel to see and take heart from. He forced himself to relax instead and sink into the alcove's shadows, and watch his _khi_ risk her life to stop a war that would be bloodier than anything Kíli could imagine.

Turn up, flick the tip, arch your spine and twist; if your opponent goes into Gróin's Fifth Slide you bear downwards and angle your feet at a precise angle and meet the double blades with a rolling movement that leaves you feeling as if you'll be shaken apart.

Kíli knew the rhythm, knew it as he breathed. Tauriel did not: Tauriel knew elvish blocks and elvish swordsmanship and elvish movement, and they did not teach how to beat dwarves in single combat in Mirkwood.

"You come back," he whispered, reedy and thin and just as desperate for it, "come back, Tauriel, or I'll never forgive you."

And then he turned away, into the cold emptiness of Erebor's halls to begin packing.

…

Tauriel spun away and let herself pant, slightly, into the brief respite.

And then she was leaping forwards, using the walls and floor and railings to bounce off, and Dáin was matching her with a blur of his axe and she was reaching, folding her muscles inwards and attempting to slip sideways-

He dug the blade of his axe into the sanded earth and flicked up, and Tauriel flinched away, too slow not to catch a faceful of sand to her eyes.

A great cry came from the elves and men, clamoring for a halt- but Thorin did not call anything, and so she had to assume the duel would continue.

She could not see. She was hampered by the use of a sword too heavy, and the one advantage she had- knowing how Dáin fought- was drastically lessened when she was unable to use her eyes. Her heart pounded in her ears, in her fingertips, like a living thing, and she would have whispered _sorry_ to Kíli if he'd been there-

 _No._

 _I am an elf of Mirkwood, trained under Thranduil Elvenking himself, and_ I will not end here.

She pressed a palm to the flat ground, and she let her heartbeat fade from her hearing. A moment later she heard his steady steps forwards, rock-heavy and almost making the sand particles quake.

 _I am the hurricane that shakes your bones._

Tauriel clenched a hand around the sword, and waited.

 _I am a king-slayer._

Dáin paused for half a breath, and she could see the arc of his axe in her mind's eye, could see where he stood without _seeing._

 _And I am your death._

She struck, smooth as black ice, softer than a feather's fall, sharp as a death-ridden wail.

And in that pause, in the heartbeat between triumph and loss, Dáin Ironfoot's eyes widened, and he exhaled softly, and he dropped to the ground as if he were a sack of stones.

Tauriel pressed her sword to the soft flesh of the underside of his chin, and she said, "Yield."

"Kill me," said Dáin.

"I will not," she said, still blind, eyes still streaming tears. " _Yield,_ Ironfoot, and learn what exile means. Enough blood has been shed on these stones."

…

"You fool," whispered Thranduil, hands bone-white on nothing but themselves. He opened his palm and pressed the flat of it to the pale green cloak he wore, and did not notice the scarlet smear left along it.

…

Legolas pressed his lips together and let go of the knife slowly. Glie, beside him, flashed a smile that twisted at the edges: so few people could afford to keep glamours as his father; and even of those who could, the power needed to keep the glamours unnoticeable was immense.

Glie was Lalan's partner, and both wore glamours around their bodies. Glie around her face, and Lalan around her arms and neck.

Neither would have worn anything were it not for Tauriel.

(Were it not for Tauriel, they would be _dead-dead-dead.)_

 _…_

"Yield," said Tauriel, and Bilbo held his breath.

"I surrender," said Dáin, and Bilbo let it out.

…

Hours later, Tauriel had been poked and prodded thrice over: first by dwarven healers, who got their hands on her first, and then by elven healers, working under Thranduil's gimlet gaze, and finally under the men's healers, simply to prove they weren't lesser than the other two races.

Kíli stood by her side with a grim look on his face that she'd never seen before. The tight grip on her shoulder had gone from comforting to very faintly bruising a long time ago, but there was little she was willing to say to him at the moment.

And then Thranduil appeared.

Kíli started forwards, hand going to the sword at his side with surprising speed. Tauriel let herself lean into his mass a little pointedly, and he went still. She turned to Thranduil and asked, as politely as she could manage, "How can we assist you, Your Majesty?"

"I wish to speak to you," he said haughtily. When Kíli remained beside her, he said, " _Alone."_

"That will be difficult to manage," Kíli began frostily, and Tauriel pressed a hand against his- he shut up.

"Ten minutes," she told him. He glared at her, and she waited him out.

"Five."

" _Ten,"_ Tauriel said firmly. "And if you wish it, remain in shouting distance. I am fine, Kíli: just a little tired, and bruised. I wish to speak to the Elvenking, and I shall."

"I don't like it," he grumbled.

She grinned at him and flicked a finger at his nose. "Ten minutes, _Morwinyon._ I shall endeavor to survive until then."

He sent a dark look at Thranduil and then stalked off, taking an unobtrusive position close to his brother.

Thranduil's eyebrows were arched.

" _Morwinyon?"_ He asked, and Tauriel flushed, lightly.

"It seemed appropriate," she said. "At the time. I mean. It might've been smarter to- but. It was just."

"Appropriate," said Thranduil, amusedly.

Tauriel lifted her nose into the air. "Yes," she said, not quite defiant, though perhaps a little bit more-so than normal. What was it about Thranduil that reduced her to stammering and feeling like a child once more?

"Then I shall tell my people to call him _Herenya,_ shall I?" Thranduil asked.

"My- Ki- lord?" Tauriel choked. Because he couldn't mean-

"You have named him hope," Thranduil said airily. "But if the two of you have made your choices, then it is our duty to hold witness to it. At least one dwarf of the line Durin has some sort of taste." He frowned. "I suppose it would be too much to ask you to spurn his affections."

"...yes?" She said.

Thranduil flashed her a close-lipped smile. "It appears that it is difficult to replace a good Captain of the Guard. All the recruits are terribly _lazy._ And full of terror at the sight of their king- a good thing, I suppose, but on the whole frustrating once the novelty wears off. So: can I tempt you back, Tauriel?"

The first time he said her name, and she felt it like a cold dash of water on her brow. No, she would have said to anyone else; no, no, no. I am not a child to be tempted back with sweet words and old comforts. I am not a child, at all; I am an elf grown and tempered, and yes, you have stood by my side and held my hand and wiped away my tears-

But. But I am not that child any longer.

But Thranduil had raised her. He had been a sort-of father figure, when her own parents died; a distant, altogether irritable and unpredictable parent- one who spent afternoons complaining of old plots in his court, and telling her to _stop crying, little elf, tears help no one, least of all yourself-_

Tauriel swallowed, hard, and dug up a pleasant-looking smile and asked, distant as wind fluttering through oak branches, "You would rescind the banishment?"

Thranduil paused. Then he said, "There is no space in my woods for a dwarf-loving elf."

"Then," she said, quietly, "there is no place for me, either."

Another, longer pause: this time, tinged with a faint tension.

"I am sorry to hear it," Thranduil told her. "You were a good Captain." He grinned toothily, suddenly, like some long-lost sense of humor had returned to him. "If the dwarf ever gets around to marrying you, I'd like to- _speak-_ to him. If you understand my meaning."

Tauriel tried to imagine that, and ended up twisting her lips and biting the inside of her cheek to keep the laugh controlled. She'd gotten threats from his family, though- so why not do it from hers? At least his face when she told him would be a treat.

Thranduil had not ceased talking as she attempted to keep her composure.

"-did you know, Legolas got the letter first? It was addressed from Kíli, Prince of Erebor, of course, but I'd be surprised if that hooligan knows his letters in Westron at all, much less in such script. And when he gave that to me, he handed wine with it. You made me waste a full bottle, little elf."

"I am sorry for that," she said slowly, feeling a steady warmth suddenly blossom inside her chest. A full bottle? Thranduil had _missed_ her. "Though I must wonder: was the wine Noldorian?"

"Impertinent," said Thranduil, and reached a hand out, hesitating slightly before wrapping it around her shoulder.

Then Legolas arrived.

Thranduil moved quickly, murmuring something into Legolas' ears before leaving the premises entirely. Legolas watched him leave with quirked lips.

"He told me to tell you that it was, and that he'll leave another inside his quarters before he leaves," Legolas said. "Though I'm not quite sure what he meant by it."

"A long story. Perhaps you should ask him."

"Do you think he'll tell me?" He asked archly.

"Yes," she said, and was surprised to see that she meant it.

Legolas sighed. "So, you will stay here, then," he said mournfully. "In this airless mountain. In this _darkness."_

"Do you remember the _Lay of Leithien?"_ Tauriel asked.

"I never had a head for it," he replied. "I thought you didn't, either."

"I remember this," she said. "That Eru asks Lúthien whether she wished to live in the eternal daylight of Valinor, or to suffer the fears and tribulations of the eternal changes and darkness of the men's afterlife. And so she said, _I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night._ And thus was her fate sealed."

"I did not think you to be swayed by pretty words or soft music," Legolas said slowly. "I suppose, however, that you have made your choice."

Tauriel smiled. "I have," she said. "But I told you that so that you could know: even in darkness, there is light; as in the night, there are stars. I am happy here. Who knows? Perhaps I can teach certain dwarf-warriors to fight blind."

He nodded slowly.

Then Kíli was there, right beside her like a particularly persistent shadow- eyes narrowed and steam likely coming out of his ears if she looked close enough.

"It's been fifteen minutes," he grumped.

Tauriel felt her lips turn up, even higher, in an honest, open sort of affection. "Kíli, this is Legolas- prince of Mirkwood and my friend. Legolas, this is Kíli- prince of Erebor and my intended."

"We've met," they said in unison.

"I shall see you," Legolas said, with a secretive sort of smile, and bowed formally.

Tauriel watched him leave with a sweet sort of sadness, and then turned to Kíli.

"What did he want?" Kíli asked.

"To tell me that I am no longer banished," she said. "I refused, of course."

"Did you?" He asked, voice softening. Tauriel rolled her eyes. "I just- have a question. For you, Tauriel. If you don't answer I won't take it the wrong way, but-"

"Ask," she said.

"How did Sifa calm Legolas down?" Kili asked, eyes bright and sharp and so very intelligent. "How did she get him to accept that it wasn't my fault? What did she say?"

Tauriel's lips twitched. "Has anyone ever called you too smart for your own good?"

"I couldn't possibly say."

"Well. Suffice it to say that she brought me along for that conversation."

"She _told_ him that you were alive?" He asked flatly.

"Not so much told as showed," Tauriel said, shrugging. Then, before he could get too worked up, she went on: "Thranduil- well. He did offer me a place in his Guard once more, and I refused. And then I think he wanted to threaten a dwarf properly without cause for war, so he wanted to gain my permission for that."

"Which dwarf?" Kíli frowned, already looking ready to start planning a regicide.

Tauriel grinned, brighter and sunnier than she had in months. "You," she said, and watched gleefully as first confusion, then indignation, then the first tendrils of fear snaked across his face.

 _No home save the steel in your spine,_ Rarachnor had spat in the filthiness of his cave.

 _No home,_ thought Tauriel, now, battle-warm and loved, in a fashion she hadn't dared to hope for in centuries, _that you do not build._

 _But then, has anyone ever told you that such homes are the sweetest to taste?_

…

…

 **EPILOGUE:**

Thorin's face twisted in a fury that reminded Bilbo of nothing more than dragon-sickness. Dís, beside him, let out a hiss as the sword was unsheathed. Kíli started forwards- just a half-step- and it was only Tauriel's hand on his shoulder that stopped him.

Sifa stared up at her King with eyes that looked weary, that looked grieved, that looked resolved.

"Where is my heir?" Thorin snarled, and Sifa lifted her chin.

"Gone," she said, and her voice rang with cold, cold wrath.

...

 **Thank you for reading! I'm working on the next fic in the series; it should be out in... a couple months. I'm not sure; life's pretty busy, and after actually writing the damn thing there will be editing, and my gusto has to last through that- so. A couple months is a conservative estimate. We'll see.**

 **Khuzdul and Quenya used:  
Iskhi: look  
Khi: One  
Khebbel: forge of all forges  
Khi'redêl: One of the heir; Sifa  
Binaklum: without royalty  
Shazara: silence  
Harasul: flame  
Zagr: sword  
Redel: Prince; not the heir  
Damm'mudtul: heartblood  
Morwinyon: Arcturus; hope (Q)  
Nadad: brother  
Nin gur: my heart  
Amrab: soul  
Yusthel: true partner  
Redêl: heir  
Khi'nututredel: One of the last heir; Kili's One; Tauriel  
Herenya: blessed, wealthy, fortunate (Q)**


End file.
